The Pentagon needs a contractor with expertise in cloud computing to support its unified communications office, particularly as it anticipates launching DEOS sometime in the next year.

"The rest of the federal government has similar requirements to do what we're trying to do to have commercial cloud vendors deliver these capabilities to them," said a DISA official.

Sherman plans "in just a couple weeks" to convene CIOs from Five Eyes allied nations to work on improved collaboration and information sharing.

FedScoop sat down at the USDS headquarters with a group of members embedded at various agencies who described how they use collaborative tools and why they believe they're so important in modernizing government operations.