RE: another failed attempt at database independence
- From: "Goulet, Dick" <richard.goulet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <gints.plivna@xxxxxxxxx>, <andrew.kerber@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 8 May 2008 09:26:51 -0400
Well, I don't know. Having been on the doing side of that,
namely as a government representative, the politics of the situation
many times over ride sanity. And if the contractor just happens to have
the "ear" of some Senator or even worse some one on the President's
staff then waste can abound "in the spirit of serving the common good".
Which mostly means "throw those guys a bone so that they don't lay off a
bunch of people in my home district, or the district of someone I'm
watching out for". In a case like that, it doesn't matter what their
qualifications are or how unsound their proposal, it gets awarded.
Especially if the dollar amount falls below certain limits where
sweeping things under the rug are easier. Heck, take a look at all of
those no-bid contracts that Haliburton got. Did you even bother to
wonder why?? (Think pervious board member now 2M ton gorilla in the
room (aka the VP).)
______________________________________________________________
Dick Goulet / Capgemini
North America P&C / East Business Unit
Senior Oracle DBA / Hosting
Office: 508.573.1978 / Mobile: 508.742.5795 / www.capgemini.com
Fax: 508.229.2019 / Email: richard.goulet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
45 Bartlett St. / Marlborough, MA 01752
Together: the Collaborative Business Experience
______________________________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gints Plivna
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 3:28 AM
To: andrew.kerber@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: ricks12345@xxxxxxxxx; Niall Litchfield; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: another failed attempt at database independence
I don't know the exact process for DoD and in USA as such but assuming
it is more or less the same as here theoretically it should be OK. DoD
or whatever else governmental agency needs something. They set their
requirements and wait for offers explaining how to do that and how it
costs and then choose the cheapest one satisfying requirements. Of
course in reality there are many caveats in decision process for
example requirements are too open, decision process is not completely
determined, offer evaluators are simply too stupid to evaluate them
properly etc. After the decision has been made there are some
opportunities also to mess it all up: including some new requirements,
excluding some old, making some changes in budget usually no more than
10% of original budget, and the main problem for governmental agency
people is the feeling that it is not money from their pockets, it is
tax-payers money i.e. everybody's money which effectively reduces to
nobody's money. So in the hands of careless, stupid and/or "determined
to spend money for friendly private organization" governmental
managers this process of course can be ruined as well as most probably
every other process.
Gints Plivna
http://www.gplivna.eu
2008/5/7, Andrew Kerber <andrew.kerber@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Well, before you go and blame the DoD, blame the process that congress
stuck
> them with. Its amazing to me that anything works considering how much
of it
> has to be done by the low bidder. The rule that always gets me is the
one
> that requires them to sit back and wait for bids, instead of going out
and
> shop around for the best price/performance. Its entirely possible in
this
> instance, that someone thought they could save software licensing
fees, and
> instead of going out and looking around and pricing things out to see
if
> that was indeed the case, they had to write it into the contract and
have it
> bid that way, without knowing if it was a good decision to begin with.
>
> The DoD is stuck with the rules that congress made for them, and just
> keeping track of them can be a full time job.
>
>
> On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:03 PM, Rick Ricky <ricks12345@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> > Here is a newer article, but it does not have any money numbers in
it. I
> checked on it. I belive the $600 million + includes the DoD total
costs,
> which include their user acceptance testing, their requirements, and
project
> management, plus they pay many millions of dollars to a third party
testing
> group to test the applications functionality. I think that is where
the
> higher number comes from.
> >
> > http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3486872
> >
> > here is another old one:
> > http://www.fcw.com/print/12_26/news/95360-1.html
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Andrew W. Kerber
>
> 'If at first you dont succeed, dont take up skydiving.'
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