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Comment by goodroot | Hacker News Reader

As a Canadian who has worked at IBM, I'm not surprised that this didn't find success. In IBMs defense, I don't believe our public sector has the experience or aptitude required to act as a supporting interface for a job of this scale.

With that being said, IBM isn't a successful technology company with a proven record building good software products. They were an unwise choice from the get-go. IBM is a successful financial engineering and sales firm that sells things, then scrambles to hire/acquires to get things done to an ever-evolving, always justifiably rough spec. They quack and then start the hack-show.

What do you expect from the organization that invented "FUD" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt) as a way to emotionally manipulate perspective clients into making a purchasing decision?

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> IBM isn't a successful technology company with a proven record building good products.

Whoa, what? Sure, some of their achievements are in their past, but that claim really overlooks a ton of history.

In this context, the only history that matters is that which speaks to its current ability to good work. I don't follow IBM closely, but the impression I get is that its current reputation is spotty.

Only huge failures make the news. CBC doesn’t run a feature on a successful software implementation.

You're right. That was too sweeping, in fairness. I've edited in 'good software products'; that record is categorically abysmal. IBM makes amazing mainframes and physical technical systems, and conducts some fascinating cutting-edge research, and even built really effective punch-card machines for use within Nazi concentration camps. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust)

If only they could run a payroll system as effectively as they can run a genocide.

You're mistakenly conflating IBM's consulting business with the rest of their current technology, both hardware and software.

No, IBM has conflated their consulting service with the rest of their technology by running under the same brand name.

If they want the benefits of sharing that brand between operations then they deserve the negatives that come along with it.

No, IBM has not done that. IBM Global Business Services and IBM Global Technical are their own business units.

Agreed, IBM has a long track record. Their recent history doesn't have a lot of W's though.

That's not true, IBM has way more Ws than Ls over it's history. Now the last few decades, that's a different story I think.

That's exactly what I said.

You must not read much technological news. From the top of my head, I can cite Quantum, Photonics, the Neurosynaptic chip, the 5nm chip fab process, POWER and Z, ...

Depends on the time-scale you're using...

It's only a slight exaggeration to say that they're living on a reputation they built doing everything except what they're trying to sell now.

When their other ships were going down, they shifted to a growing area of demand, not an area of their expertise. A brand shell game.

> In IBMs defense, I don't believe our public sector has the experience or aptitude required to act as a supporting interface for a job of this scale.

How in any way is this "In IBMs defense"? We should think it OK that they pursued and committed to a large government contract that in reality they were not qualified to complete? The sentence reads more as a condemnation.

It’s likely more complicated than this and there is probably tons of blame and failure to go around on all sides, particularly on the management and oversight side.

“Our” in this case clearly refers to Canadians, not IBM. Do you know what public sector means?

I read the comment you're replying to more as "IBM shouldn't commit to projects if the client isn't mature enough to make it work."

I can imagine that management meeting. "I don't think we should take the project because the client has more money than sense."

I've worked in consulting on a much smaller scale. Like $1-30MM kinda deals. It was priority 1 to make sure the client knew exactly what we needed from them to get a successful outcome.

Sure, me too. But this doesn't mean the management doesn't change, their requirements don't change, and idiots in consulting will bend over backwards to make them happy.

I know folks who work at IBM as well - don't mean to put you on the spot - but IBM should be far better at leading and guiding customers to success.

Except at $250-350/hour, below average performance is more profitable than successful and a lot of good people suffer on both sides.

Didn't IBM effectively give them that guidance?

It seems kind of simple in a way, if IBM was hired to build X and failed to do so, then there will be a law suit or some form of arbitration and some money will be recovered or something. It's pretty standard breach of contract type stuff. You can audit everything too, maybe IBM was billing for stuff they shouldn't have; I kind of doubt it but maybe there was something really amiss.

On the other hand if IBM was hired to build X, then it changed in to X' and then X'' and 10,000 changes later it turns our, Canada really wanted Y from the start, isn't IBM guiding them along their process to figure that out? It's an insanely expensive way to build and buy stuff.

Is there supposed to be some sort of internal customer's advocate that looks at the project and says "hmm, this is a payroll system, it shouldn't cost a $billion typically, or this was a $100m contract that is already up to $300m, something must be wrong..." Don't get me wrong, in most sales driven organizations, they're high-fiving whoever inked that contract and trying to get invited to the parties he throws on his yacht. The catastrophic failure sucks for everybody, it's hard to see someone else finishing the job more inexpensively that getting IBM to do it though.

Interesting idea.

What if X wasn't defined to begin, besides a high level of saying "one way or another we'll get you a working result".

Any reasonable firm is hired to map out X to Y as best as possible, or at least be sure they did everything to uncover the possibilities, as much as they may, or may not occur. I have a hard time believing IBM has only experienced this once. I'm not saying IBM would do this, but maybe it happened that certain risks or unknowns didn't get the full attention or support from either side.

Contingencies in contracts are often for when things go to hell, taking up any action or arbitration is still not getting the client the result on top of taking resources away.

Saying we tried when we took a lot of your money isn't exactly a satisfying experience and use of taxpayer dollar. If this had been in the private world, would it have happened as easily?

Your point about competency in procuring digital solutions is a neat one - I don't know of many organizations, be it commercial, government, or academic that are good at this.

I guarantee that "X" wasn't defined when the contract was signed. Not defined as something that could be implemented. It was a problem solving mission.

I also want to clarify, I'm not saying IBM plotted X to Y in the most efficient way or that they did it when others could not in my last sentence. I was saying that now that Canada is a $billion deep. They have 3 choices: 1) kill it all and be $billion poorer and have no solution. 2) Somehow beat IBM in to a better deal and get a solution for like $1.2billion, I think news like this is part of the beating. or 3) Probably spend more than like $1.2b to get someone else to get it across the finish line or start over from scratch. Presumably they need something and at this point IBM is probably the closest to the finish line; change horses midstream and you usually get wet. Hey and let's throw out the other condition, IBM might own the product so switching vendors might be a defacto start from scratch.

Maybe it's time to start firing people for choosing IBM.

As an American who has worked at IBM, I'm also not surprised that this didn't find success.

They messed up my own payroll, by sending too little, then too much, then we had a 6 month back and forth trying to resolve it.

> perspective clients

prospective

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