[seemstoaddup]

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 benefactor of this contract? Any political implications?

Remember that Gov. point person also bears a lot of the responsibility for shopping for IT services in a magazine or trough their business network.

If IBM has been so ineffective at delivering services there would be more cases like this and it would ultimately hurt their bottom line. If this was wide spread practice across their business units. Maybe their business as a whole is insulated by the other better performing parts of it's corporation.

It seems to me that these "Governments" should investigate anyone who touched these contracts.

To the widespread corruption present in Eastern Europe. It does exist. However this article goes to show that corruption is present at a larger scale in some of the "most" developed nations on earth.

[na85]

Because government contracts have to be transparent, the award process tends to be overly bureaucratic and algorithmic. There's no real mechanism with which the Canadian government could bar IBM from bidding, and they're obliged to take the best bid. Usually this is lowest cost per rated point, scored against a large matrix of must-haves and nice-to-haves that are assigned weights.

[seemstoaddup]

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.

[RustyHN]

I used to work as an in house contractor for the US Government on a team with two other developers. Our federal managers were pushing to replace a highly customized HR system with a 3rd party product. It was going to cost millions of dollars and take over a year. Our job was to help with the transition even though we built and maintained the original system. However, our contractor manager pushed for us to upgrade the existing system in house by hiring two additional surge developers. We ended up finishing the entire project in six months well under budget and exactly to spec with great feedback from the users. Funny thing about it is the federal managers took credit for the project even though they initially wanted to use a 3rd party system. Such is politics.

[794CD01]

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.

[breatheoften]

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)

[hindsightbias]

IBMCA was the only bidder.

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

Few if any 'integrators' will touch these projects.

[pbadenski]

It seems that the logic is: "We know this will go bad, are we capable of taking PR hit when (not if) this goes bad". Many companies failed that risk assessment. IBM concluded - "Yes, let's make a run for the money. We are likely doomed for failure, but this will not damage us.". I hope I'm just overly cynical...