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IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to $185M

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Re: IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to $185M

#101

Post by nucleardog »

microcolonel wrote: post #66
throwaway_45 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't Canada put a rule saying all work must be done by Canadians. Even if its cheaper keeping the money in country seems better than sending it to India.

> Why doesn't Canada put a rule saying all work must be done by Canadians. Because the government doesn't want to be seen as xenophobic. One of the major talking points of the prime minister and his government is "diversity is our strength". They also may want (depending on the department) to be seen as distancing themselves from expenses, not necessarily engaging in cost savings per se, but in cost-saving-style beha…

> Because the government doesn't want to be seen as xenophobic. One of the major talking points of the prime minister and his government is "diversity is our strength".

That explains the current administration, but what about the 10 years before that?

Re: IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to $185M

#102

Post by eein »

I want an install of wordpress for 500 dollars, i'll handle the hosting costs dont worry

---

oh can i have a special blog template with x

oh can i have a store as well, i'll pay any associated licensing fees.

oh can i add a new payment processor

oh can i ...

why did you make me spend so much on this. I'll report to the media how awful you are.

Said nobody but government.

Re: IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to $185M

#103

Post by eein »

I want an install of wordpress for 500 dollars, i'll handle the hosting costs dont worry

---

oh can i have a special blog template with x

oh can i have a store as well, i'll pay any associated licensing fees.

oh can i have x plugin

oh can i have another x plugin

oh can i add a new payment processor

oh can i add bitbcoin

oh can i add some no-value features.

why did you make me spend so much on this. I'll report to the media how awful you are.

Said nobody but government. (just the above bit)

Re: IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to $185M

#104

Post by bhouston »

vkou wrote: post #46
haecceity wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even $100 CAD/hr sounds way too low.

So does $5 CAD/hr. Salaries in India have grown a fair bit since the early oughts.

Glassdoor for Indian IBM software developer:

https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salary/IBM-Software-Engineer-India-...

739,759 INR = $14K CAD/year = $6.7 CAD / hr.

Pretty close for a rough guess I would argue. But I was a little low.

Re: IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to $185M

#105

Post by boznz »

deskamess wrote: post #67
bhouston wrote: post #39

Like all IBM projects now day the bulk of the work was done in India for likely less than $5 CAD/hr, while they billed out $100 CAD/hr or even more. The actual numbers may be slightly different, but still these are close to reality. What a great profit margin for a failed project. I wouldn't be surprised the code is like a lot I've seen from Indian-based sweat shops (btw there are amazing Indian coders, but you gener…

Not defending IBM, but IBM's job was to install "off the shelf software called PeopleSoft" to create a payroll system. They 'installed' it and walked away as that was what was required of them. They are now being called in to do more and that has contracting costs associated with it. The Govt of Canada has as much blame in this as anything - poorly written contracts with little knowledge of how software works.

A responsible contractor should ask the right questions to make sure the customer is not asking the impossible and are not going to be stuck with a useless solution at the end, they should not just milk the fuck out of them and cover their arses with layers of get out clauses.

Likewise the customer should not be such a dumb-shit as to agree to/write a contract which produces a system they cannot use and not take proper independent advice.

I have no sympathy for either party.

Re: IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to $185M

#106

Post by mbrodersen »

The business model of most (all?) large scale software developers is to sell the client the moon, at low cost, and then step by step make the client pay more and more for the system, until the client ends up with a very expensive, very hard to maintain system that kinda work, but requires ongoing and expensive "maintenance" work that only the large scale developer can do. It is a very lucrative business strategy. And they get away with it, because of the client decision makers often not being competent enough to make decisions about software systems development.

Re: IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to $185M

#107

Post by thisisit »

ams6110 wrote: post #93
thisisit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not installing Peoplesoft with customization. "Off the shelf" implies a simple install would do. Obviously it seems using a default Peoplesoft workflow is not enough.

There is no such thing as a "simple" install of PeopleSoft that is immediately usable. It's "consultingware." It requires configuration and customization before it can do anything useful at all. Consultingware is a variant of shrinkwrap which requires so much customization and installation that you need an army of consultants to install it, at outrageous cost. CRM and CMS packages often fall in this category. One get…

To reply to your's and the sibling comment. I understand that Peoplesoft cannot work by doing a simple install and use. I have worked with Peoplesoft for a bit too. I was merely pointing out that article says it was proposed as an "off the shelf" installation. With that information I am not sure if we can draw a conclusion whether the customization was asked or proposed in the first draft.

If we were to look at the problem from the angle of "proposed as an off the shelf installation" it becomes apparently clear as to why this whole thing had a problem. IBM was asked to install and go which they might have but without any customisation on it, the whole thing fell apart.

It will be interesting to know how was the "off shelf installation" proposal made. Was it IBM's consultant who made that error or some contractor before IBM?

Re: IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to $185M

#108

Post by j45 »

deskamess wrote: post #98
j45 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing how to buy and implement software is the responsibility, and therefore fault of both parties. The service provider sounds like they either have not done this before, or are willing to make money off endless change requests. The buyer's side in the government also likely has culpability in someone buying software who doesn't know how it's implemented.

I am not sure IBM should do something they were not asked to do. Not what they quoted for, IMO.

Consultant Contractors Freelancers..

Consultants are there to provide advice, guidance, strategy, and oversee/implement.

Contractors are there to be implement something that's already laid out for them.

Freelancers have a tiny portion of the work to do with little to no say.

Often, freelancers are upset that their customers don't want them to be a consultant and care about their opinions.

There appear to be 2 key failures of the vendor:

1) There's a big difference between being a consultant, contractor, or a freelancer. IBM is there to provide expertise to have a successful project.

2) Disfunction and inefficiency is profitable. It's good such behaviour is coming to light, because future up and companies will eat IBM's lunch in time.

Re: IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to $185M

#109

Post by thaumasiotes »

emerongi wrote: post #75
mrweasel wrote: post #35

>IBM Canada was the only company to bid on the government's pay modernization project If only ONE company bid on your project, then you honestly need to rethink it. Does the government really believe that IBM was the only company interested? Any project that only receive one bid should be cancelled and rethought. If your payroll regulation is so complex that only one company wants to bid, then maybe you should addres…

It's not unusual for governments to create such project requirements that only one or two companies can bid on it. The "winning" company is known long before. Happens in all sectors.

I believe the practice is known as "single-sourcing".

Re: IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to $185M

#110

Post by equalunique »

It's insanity to expect not to waste money when asking IBM to install an Oracle CRM/SCM/FMS/HRMS/EPM/ERP suite. God knows it's running on some huge SPARC or Power system with terabytes of RAM and thousands of threads. Maybe a mainframe too. It's the worse possible combination. It's practically taking the cost of IBM consultancy and the cost of Oracle software and multiplying both. Suicide.
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