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A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

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Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#71

Post by bartread »

zokier wrote: post #68
bartread wrote: post #55

It's not just IBM: any of the larger enterprise consultancies should, at best, be regarded with suspicion. I well remember the EDS/UK Inland Revenue fiasco of the late nineties/early noughties, and there are plenty of other examples involving other big players.

If you think that all big consultancies fail so equally, then doesn't that hint strongly that maybe, just maybe, the issues are on the other side?

Well, I'd be lying if I suggested I had an overabundance of respect for large consultancies, but actually I don't think it's so simple in either direction.

Consultancies mis-sell and misrepresent their services, whilst public service/government scopes the project poorly and is more than happy to buy into the fantasy. Every project is different so this is still an oversimplification.

Nevertheless, when an enterprise IT service provider is involved in a project it's often a red flag on successful delivery. Whether that's correlation or causation is up for debate.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#72

Post by raesene9 »

ksk wrote: post #22
Shoothe wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used two services from IBM: Notes and node DB2 package. Both of them were pretty low quality, the db2 package was so unstable that it constantly segfaulted the entire node process. It's not fixed for years since the issue was reported with reproducible code. Needless to say I wouldn't recommend IBM even to my enemies. Can anyone share a good IBM experience? I'm honestly interested.

Those appear to be products - which is different than hiring IBM to develop something for you. IBM has had a storied history in tech from developing/popularizing the PC to OS/2 to their thinkpad laptops, to designing systems for the space shuttle, and natural language projects like the Watson. I don't think IBM lacks talent. Its almost seems like when you can get away with milking the system, nobody seems to have any…

Unfortunately IBMs history doesn't really provide any evidence of their current competency.

You really don't have to go far to find stories of IBMs cost cutting, moving staff to the lowest possible cost locations, poor treatment of staff etc.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/06/ibm_retracts_agreed... is one recent example.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#73

Post by walrus01 »

Naga wrote: post #36

There's a dimension left out here on the Phoenix disaster: It wasn't really IBM's fault at all. The Canadian public service is really complex. There are multiple unions with multiple overlapping collective bargaining agreements, where the public service is allocated to different classes. These classes are paid specific rates, with retroactive pay being common for changing classes. The majority of the problems with Ph…

the problems with part #2 have been pretty extensively discussed and detailed already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16494387

my earlier post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16495431

basically, it's a political game... the same jobs they "lost" in miramichi because of the firearms registry legal change, they tried to get back. Same pork barrel politics that congressmen in the US play with trying to bring jobs to rural districts.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#74

Post by dredmorbius »

cromulent wrote: post #64
dredmorbius wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And an integral component of a FUD strategy. Employed elsewhere (o hai msft) but originated, under that particular acronym, at IBM. The cconcept itself can be traced back at least as far as Sun Tzu.

I'm intrigued about the Sun Tzu history - could you expand a bit more?

The doctrine is scattered throughout the work, and much of the expansion is in commentary, ancient & modern

But: "All warfare is based on deception."

https://suntzusaid.com/book/1/18

(And following, as below.)

Also on the use of spies.

More:

https://suntzusaid.com/book/11/36

https://suntzusaid.com/book/11/37

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#75

Post by LifeLiverTransp »

otoburb wrote: post #70
toast0 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some level, isn't IBM supposed to point out that training and transition are important for a large project and shouldn't be left out?

They most likely did raise this, but when asked to provide a more "competitive" bid, they axed training and who knows what else. This is common in large enterprise sales deals. For professional services deployment engagements, there is always the possibility of an amendment to the services scope (often referred to as a change order or change request). If the project is estimated to take over a year to deploy, by then…

Another nice thing about governments is that they do not deal in monetary damages but in media fallout- so something loud (collapse of a billion dollar project) is worser to them, then silently going over budget because additional points appear on the list.

So biding yourself into a project to low gives you enough leverage when the point of no return is reached to still make a big plus.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#76

Post by tptacek »

Historically Slovakia gets lumped with Eastern Europe in popular perception - Slovakia is nothing like Romania, the Ukraine, Albania or even Poland in turning out petty criminals or promiscuous online fraudsters. Not to forget Western Europe, France has a far more unhealthy work culture and fraud at work and as a way of living is far more acceptable than in Slovakia. Germany and Austria tend to value probity far more highly than the Mediterranean countries. Hundreds of years of late Roman Empire corruption left an undying footprint.

This attitude is shot through the whole piece (essentializing not just Europeans but also Indians), and it's weird and creepy.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#77

Post by hindsightbias »

seemstoaddup wrote: post #59

This is an interesting narrative. However it cannot be the only one. Let us explore some alternatives and side notes. Who was responsible for picking IBM? Are they still working for the CA gov? Have they passed the hot potato to someone else? How were their technical skills and soft skills evaluated? Did they receive any donations for the contract? Where are the safety clauses in the contract? Is IBM the only benefac…

IBMCA was the only bidder.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-ibm-contract-un...

Few if any 'integrators' will touch these projects.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#78

Post by le_zonzon »

linkmotif wrote: post #53

I really didn't understand this piece. Did anyone else struggle to follow it from sentence to sentence? Did this article really compare FreshBooks to the payroll needs of the Government of Canada? Whatt??

It was really badly written and difficult to follow, yes. Plus, many small typos.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#79

Post by mcv »

maxxxxx wrote: post #38
mcv wrote: post #31

It's not just IBM. Dutch government IT projects also have a tendency to fail big, and those are handled by other companies. It seems governments are easy marks for mediocre IT companies.

From my experience it's mainly that governments don't have a lot of experts on staff so a lot of decision making gets outsourced too. I worked on a gov contract a long time ago and it was pretty obvious that there were several higher ups in government who added their own conflicting requirements to the list. Everybody in the trenches saw that they made things incredibly complex for no good reason but nobody pushed ba…

Another problem with governments is that they're made up of dozens or hundreds of different organisations, and they all make these mistakes on their own. Even if one organisation gets it right, other parts of the government don't benefit from that expertise.

I think governments should have a special organisation that just maintains the expertise for handling these sort of big projects all across the government.

Re: A billion reasons never to buy IBM services

#80

Post by breatheoften »

794CD01 wrote: post #67
seemstoaddup wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the system is set up in such a way as to deliver a under-performing product. Especially if it optimizes for "lowest cost per rated point". Quality things require significant investment. No wonder IBM has to go get developers outside of the US/CA/AU if they were the lowest bid. Now it all fits together. Whenever i go to my states web services and they look odd. I now know why. That is changing though.

If you don't have an objective metric like that, these bureaucrats don't magically learn how to make good decisions. They just overpay their friends instead. These bidding systems are a symptom of bad decision makers, not their cause.

Governments used to build things in house as well ... I remember the first time I applied for federal student aid — in 1999 — it was a long complicated form but it was far more complex and functional than any web application I’d interacted with up to that date.

Built on in-house knowledge rather than subcontracted out to incompetents with zero stake in product quality or understanding of what they were trying to build ... (aka the outsource everything mentality of the gop that spread everywhere during bush era from which American government managed infrastructure on all levels has never recovered — and probably will never recover)

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