Government IT News For VARs — September 5, 2013
Business Solutions searched recent headlines for news of interest to VARs serving government organizations.
Software Developers Can Access Petroleum, Natural Gas Data From EIA
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s application programming interface (API) now includes petroleum and natural gas time-series data. This adds 127,000 data sets and summarizes petroleum and natural gas production, consumption, inventories, prices, imports, exports, and sales data. The API continues to include State Energy Data System (SEDS) and electricity data sets. Now, in total, third parties have direct computer access to 569,000 data-time series. Software developers working in government can use the data sets to design applications for the Internet or mobile devices. Future additions planned for the API include coal data sets and the Annual Energy Outlook data set.
Report Says Public Safety LTE Market Is Opportunity for VARs, Integrators
Research and Markets has released “Public Safety LTE: A Global Assessment of Market Size, Technology, Vendor Trends and Spectrum Allocation 2013 - 2018.” The study says the demand for long term evolution (LTE) high-speed wireless communication in public safety is growing — anticipating the market will be $10 billion in 2018, up from $1.8 billion this year. Operator service will account for the majority of revenues, followed by managed services and integrations, “representing a lucrative opportunity for vendors and system integrators to build, own, and operate public safety LTE networks.”
Public-Safety Apps Available But Not Public-Safety Ready
An Urgent Communications article points out there are a number of public-safety apps, but many aren’t public-safety ready. National Emergency Number Association (NENA) and the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) have developed a joint working group to help educate app developers to meet the needs of points that answer public-safety emergency calls.
Air Force, Army, DISA, IT Agreement Saves More than $1 Billion
The U.S. Air Force, Army, and Defense Information Systems Agency have entered into a new IT architecture-sharing and modernization agreement. The move will mean more bandwidth, network security, and more than $1 billion of savings in future costs. Teresa Takaj, the DoD’s CIO said, “As (the Defense Department) continues to move aggressively toward (the Joint Information Environment), this partnership is an important step forward.”
Government IT Talking Points
The Government Technology article “Analytics For Smarter Communities” gives examples of different ways analytics have helped communities benefit from the data they are collecting.