If you’re using a Macintosh, you’re not able to fully use the US Government website that aims to be a one-stop shop for scholars and others in search of federal grants. After spending billions of dollars to replace the paper-based system for grants at NIH, Housing & Urban Development and other agencies, the new Grants.gov site will only work with Windows.
Northrop Grumman (with a $22 billion contract to build this system) is using PureEdge software (recently acquired by IBM). According to a press release from IBM, this is all based on an emerging electronic form standard called Xforms—based on XML! I think I read “open industry standard” about six times in that release—guess “open” and “standard” don’t necessarily mean what they used to, huh?
From the grants.gov website:
“If you do not have a Windows operating system, you will need to use a Windows emulation program.”
Update (2/14)
The University of Wisconsin has made available a Citrix client for OSX which accesses the server operated by Grants.gov. You can read about the software and download a copy at this link: