[bartread]

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.

[zokier]

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?

[bartread]

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.

[harry8]

No.

No really.

The issues on the other side are the opportunity ibm, accenture, oracle etc exploit. They're not just aware of those issues going in, they are 100% counting on them.

They're not even interested unless those issues exist - it's one or two orders of magnitude less profit. In fact you can say that those issues are why these consultancies get hired in the first place. No competent manager would go near these carpet baggers.

You can blame the marks for being marks and say they deserve it (tax payers) but this has nothing to do with IBM being a con. A con they are. If they don't like that reputation they shouldn't do it, again and again. But it's so profitable it pays for the PR to restore reputation up to a point. We've now got that point. No PR can cover the stench.

IBM - only an idiot or the corrupt on kickbacks would engage them to con.