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> If this startup (and ones like it) is successful in getting traction taking over some of these projects, there are going to be a lot of very unhappy IT compan

> If this startup (and ones like it) is successful in getting traction taking over some of these projects, there are going to be a lot of very unhappy IT companies that were riding the gravy train for decades. While $1.3 billion is a massive amount of money to spend on a project, the article summarizing that effort as being "an electronic health-records database" is incredibly trite. This characterization implies "some RDBMS someplace that holds the information." The scope of trying to bring all parties involved into a set of computer systems collaborating in workflows which would make Descartes[1] blush is immense. Stating that the tens of thousands of people working on that effort are "riding the gravy train for decades" is naive at best. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_product https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_product

mistermann 11y ago
Sorry but as someone with many decades of experience with various levels of self-interest and corruption, I don't buy your casual "it's a hard problem" excuse. > In the past 10 years, about 96 % of all government IT programs that cost over $10 million were deemed failures Would you have us believe these were all hard problems?
- AdieuToLogic 11y ago
  > > In the past 10 years, about 96 % of all government IT programs that cost over $10 million were deemed failures > Would you have us believe these were all hard problems? First, the statistic the article references appear to be from a Computerworld article[1] which uses "The Standish Group" analysis. This analysis indicates a 96% failure rate for all IT programs costing more than $10 million and is not limited to "government IT programs." In other words, the article failed to meet their user expectations of due diligence in representing a pivotal metric such as this. Second, as the size of an effort increases in personnel, of course there will be inefficiencies. Waste, self-interest, and possibly corruption as well. But you specifically used the phrase "unhappy IT companies that were riding the gravy train", implying ulterior motives of those organizations and discounting the difficulty involved in a healthcare records project involved two huge organizations. 1 - http://www.computerworld.com/article/2486426/healthcare-it/healthcare-gov-website--didn-t-have-a-chance-in-hell-.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2486426/healthcare-it/h...

mistermann 11y ago

Sorry but as someone with many decades of experience with various levels of self-interest and corruption, I don't buy your casual "it's a hard problem" excuse. > In the past 10 years, about 96 % of all government IT programs that cost over $10 million were deemed failures Would you have us believe these were all hard problems?

AdieuToLogic 11y ago
> > In the past 10 years, about 96 % of all government IT programs that cost over $10 million were deemed failures > Would you have us believe these were all hard problems? First, the statistic the article references appear to be from a Computerworld article[1] which uses "The Standish Group" analysis. This analysis indicates a 96% failure rate for all IT programs costing more than $10 million and is not limited to "government IT programs." In other words, the article failed to meet their user expectations of due diligence in representing a pivotal metric such as this. Second, as the size of an effort increases in personnel, of course there will be inefficiencies. Waste, self-interest, and possibly corruption as well. But you specifically used the phrase "unhappy IT companies that were riding the gravy train", implying ulterior motives of those organizations and discounting the difficulty involved in a healthcare records project involved two huge organizations. 1 - http://www.computerworld.com/article/2486426/healthcare-it/healthcare-gov-website--didn-t-have-a-chance-in-hell-.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2486426/healthcare-it/h...