The OASIS professional services vehicle is gaining traction among small businesses as federal agencies point to OASIS as a go-to source, as the federal government pushes for fewer contracts.
Roger Cohen is a columnist for the New York Times. He mostly writes about foreign policy, but his most-recent column strays from the beaten path to focus on Airbnb.
The column begins with an account of a recent conversation Cohen had with Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s founder and CEO. “He told me about trying to raise $150,000 in 2008 for his idea of a peer-to-peer home and room rental company. Everyone called him crazy,” Cohen writes. “They scoffed at the notion that people would trust one another enough to allow strangers into their homes. They derided the idea that those strangers would be nice enough, or honest enough, to respect properties.”
Source: Should federal contracting be more like Airbnb? — FCW
The Defense Department has released the long-awaited final proposal for its $10 billion warfighter cloud acquisition, Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program.
Source: Pentagon’s $10 billion JEDI cloud buy hits the street — FCW
The Section 809 Panel, established to find ways to streamline and improve the defense acquisition process, has advocated for drastic changes, primarily by empowering acquisition leaders to make buying and hiring decisions and boosting funding to train civilian acquisition workers, according to its latest report.
Source: How to fix the Pentagon’s acquisition workforce problems in one week — FCW
In a step it hopes will help ease agency acquisition of everything from IT systems to pencils, the General Services Administration is adding a feature to its schedule programs called Order Level Materials, which was the subject of a recent rulemaking process.
Source: GSA looks to streamline acquisition for federal buyers — FCW
In government contracting, it is a truism that significant challenges to the status quo invariably create pushback. But the status quo in government IT is inertia, and in a world of constantly evolving cyber threats, this creates greater risks and vulnerabilities. Our enemies in cyberspace are not standing still. Why should federal agencies?
Source: The misguided campaign to undermine OTAs and innovation — FCW
According to an oversight memo, the General Services Administration didn’t complete required background checks on all contractors working on transition duties for the $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Systems contract.
Source: Watchdog: GSA isn’t clearing all contactors for work on telecom transition — FCW
The White House proposed consolidating programs that offer credentials to small businesses aspiring to contract with the federal government as part of a proposed large-scale reorganization plan released by the Trump administration June 21.
Source: Small biz programs for contractors could be consolidated in reorg — FCW
The government’s desire to move to cloud computing is gaining significant momentum. The White House is drafting a major new cloud policy (the first since 2010), and the newly created Cloud Center of Excellence, designed to drive government cloud adoption, began its pilot program at the Department of Agriculture several months ago.
Source: It’s time to fix our cloud procurement problems — FCW
Two of the agencies with the lowest Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act grades pushed back on their scores, and outlined their future modernization plans before a House panel.