Friday, March 26
PBS | I, Cringely . Conscientious Objector
From: PBS | I, Cringely . Conscientious Objector:
I must have hit a nerve with last week's column on the travails of EDS and the Navy and Marine Corp Intranet (NMCI). Reader response was not only great -- a lot of new information came to light that puts me in a much better position to link this example back to the whole idea of outsourcing, which appears to have changed its fundamental intent over the years in a way that hasn't been noticed and isn't good. In this case, NMCI is just one example of a trend that is both pervasive and sad, not just for the military, but for all of us. Once again, there are no bad guys here (well, there is one, but he's gone), but plenty of lessons stand to be learned about when it is right (or not right) to hand over a job to someone else.Very interesting article that I thinks the mark. Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 3/26/2004 11:10:00 AM
In case you didn't read last week's column, the Department of the Navy decided to outsource most of its shore-based IT activities in an effort to standardize a broad array of systems and to get costs under control. NMCI was a competitive bid eventually won by EDS, which hasn't done either a very good job of pleasing the Navy or making money on the deal.
Part of the problem is standardization, which looks great if you are part of a command that hasn't had much in the way of IT resources, but looks terrible if you are with a leading-edge unit that had all sorts of toys, only to have NMCI take most of them away. One size definitely does not fit everyone, and it was a grave mistake on the part of the Navy to even pretend that it could.
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