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Comment by LVB | Hacker News Reader

My state of Oregon paid Oracle something like $250M for a healthcare system that never materialized. The lawsuit that followed was settled for $100M, but most of that was “free” Oracle licenses and no less than $60M of customer support.

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I don't understand why any human being on planet earth would ever hire Oracle at this point, it's like asking for trouble.

The people making the decisions get kickbacks, and the general population is stuck with the bill.

The question is rather why people like asking for trouble so much.

Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM...

then let's blame and fire the people who hire oracle

If you have a large organisation and you need software to support all of the relevant processes - you don't exactly have a lot of options...

Nobody ever needs an “IT system” to support all of the relevant processes, no matter how large the organisation.

It’s like paying for trouble.

Actually it's the opposite. I worked for an NGO half a decade ago, and they wanted to add 2FA authentication to their login system used by ~400 staff. I created a quick demo using Google Authenticator in less than a week.

However the director of IT didn't like this solution. He insisted we use RSA keys and hire IBM to build a solution using that - I think the original estimate was a few million $ and it would take six months or so for their team (of basically new graduates) to build.

I asked my boss why the director was pushing so much for IBM to build it:

He told me that if we build it, and it doesn't work, then the director has to take the blame. If IBM build it, and it doesn't work, then IBM take the blame.

Same reason why it took companies very long until they were ready to accept OSS. "But who can we sue if something doesn't work?" - at the end of the day it's always about someone being responsible. And if people can make sure that that someone is not them they will often take that option.

While I understand your point, the point the GP and I were making is that by bringing in (eg) IBM to the project, you're increasing the chance of failure.

I suppose the irony is that you bring in this huge bureaucracy to reduce the risk of blowback, but not the risk of failure.

That’s definitely a consideration: it increases the risk of failure but also increases the odds that you won’t be held accountable personally. One of the interesting dynamics here is that if they fail you, they have an extensive PR machine which will shop around excuses for the problems and help minimize them. If you do your own thing, the same people will tell their other marks that it was because you didn’t use them.

In the public sector, there’s often a political aspect as well - the senior management of the big consulting companies are far more likely to meet with the politicians than you, and even if you are certain that your decision is correct you have to ask what the odds are that their narrative will set the tone at a level you’re rarely asked to appear at.

Yes. There’s also the revolving door problem. The bureaucrat making the decision is often angling for a cushy role at the contractor. And the contractor is making the offer under the table to get the gig. From the decision makers perspective, it doesn’t matter if the project succeeds, they’ll be long gone. I’ve seen this with my own eyes.

> if we build it, and it doesn't work, then the director has to take the blame. If IBM build it, and it doesn't work, then

...the guy who decided to outsource it to IBM has to take the blame. No? Oh, right, "there is no way he reasonably could have known that it could fail". Then again, the same argument could have been used with the in-house development as well?..

I guess it basically boils down to what is and is not a "socially" acceptable way to deflect blame from yourself and those things, as all things social/customary, don't have to really be consistent.

Literally "nobody ever gets fired for buying IBM".

No one person gets fired but there might be a round of layoffs to pay the bill.

Not to give Oracle a pass, but there was plenty of blame for the state as well.

https://upperedge.com/erp-program-management/7-decisions-tha...

Granted 2 of those mistakes were chose oracle and listened to oracle.

This is a massive one; they tried to do the integration themselves under a deadline with no expertise while increasing scope under said deadline. They also had massive churn. Any vendor's solution they chose would have most likely failed.

In an attempt to save money, the appointed CIO determined that the state did not require the services of a systems integrator independent from Oracle. Instead, they decided to train their own team on Oracle products to drive a self-sufficient organization. The logic behind this decision is clear, if you train your own people, you can create independence from your service provider and ultimately create the potential to deliver greater value to the organization.

However, the State of Oregon did not have the staff available to train and were losing as many people as they hired. A staff of Oracle programmers coupled with a program lead that lacks experience is typically a recipe for disaster.

>chose oracle and listened to oracle

All the other vendors decided not to accept the contract based on the deadline and scope. That's also pretty telling.

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