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Oracle Deflects Blame For Troubled Oregon Health Care Site
itwbennett (1594911) writes "Oracle is gearing up for a fight with officials in Oregon over its role developing an expensive health insurance exchange website that still isn't fully operational. In a letter obtained by the Oregonian newspaper this week, Oracle co-president Safra Catz said that Oregon officials have provided the public with a 'false narrative' concerning who is to blame for Cover Oregon's woes. In the letter, Catz pointed out that Oregon's decision to act as their own systems integrator on the project, using Oracle consultants on a time-and-materials basis, was 'criticized frequently by many'. And as far as Oracle is concerned, 'Cover Oregon lacked the skills, knowledge or ability to be successful as the systems integrator on an undertaking of this scope and complexity,' she added."
Oracle doing its usual crapware!
PS:I'm a sysadmin of Oracle applications and they REALLY is shit!
It's that people think they can drop Oracle on top of a crappy design and that will somehow magically fix it. By the time people get done trying to use brute force, ignorance and massive amounts of IT resources, you may as well have Dbase III on your back end. Oracle might let you get away with a shitty design if your application didn't really need a database, but it's not going to help you that much if what you're trying to do is complicated enough to need one.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Never bring politics... to an electronic documentation of timeline fight with a database company.
So, we're seeing the fingers of the horn-hairs pointing at each other for a failure that their brown-nosed underlings caused on both sides. Don't blame the geeks, blame the suits.
We were forced to sign this contract. On gun point actually. And then they said that we should take their money or they'll break our knee caps.
You see, we are the victims here.
Larry
"...'Cover Oregon lacked the skills, knowledge or ability to be successful as the systems integrator on an undertaking of this scope and complexity,'
Gee, that's funny. And here I thought I was in the majority in thinking that it is in fact Oracle who lacks the skills, knowledge, or ability to fix that piece-of-shit Frankenstein they want to label a working product.
I suppose if you thought you were buying a perpetual bug and patch service, sure. They're fucking awesome at that. I might even be so bold as to say #1 in the industry.
The Veterans Affairs has been using an EMR for Decades. If Obama was serious about getting us all on the same page, he would make everyone use the EMR system of the VA.. yes it would suk big time. But we would all be in the same suck together. AND IT WOULD SAVE A LOT OF TAXES because that's what is paying for all this EMR bs anyway.
Of course, the irony is that the final solution would be provided by the military...
All of them.
In the case of all of them failing you have to look at the common denominator because ALL of them failed.
Newsflash... Oracle was not involved in all of the exchanges.
The central problem was that the rollout was rushed for political reasons.
If it were slowed down then the republicans might have had more success killing it before implementation. Even now it might well die. So the democrats rushed the rollout.
And this is the result.
That is not Oracle's fault. We all have experience with projects that are rushed through planning to the point where they are unworkable.
That's all this is... nothing more or less.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It's the customers' fault. EVERYBODY in the IT business already knows that Oracle invariably gives you:
- Bizarely high price
- Incomplete project result
- Project delays
- Low quality
- Extreme vendor lock in
E.v.e.r.y s.i.n.g.l.e p.r.o.j.e.c.t they do.
I'm not sure whther to cry or laugh at this. Just don't go with Oracle, every sane IT professional knows that.
Oracle should accept some losses and quietly make an amiable-as-possible exit. Why air dirty laundry about clients? Even if the State is partly to blame, being a loud asshole makes you less likely to get future gov't contracts.
Table-ized A.I.
Ah yes, much lke the current healthcare law. Sign up or else.
The project was a huge success. It separated Oregon from their money, right?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It does sound as though the primary blame has to be put at the Oregon's officials since Oregon was the lead on the project. The lead is always 100% responsible for the project, after the project failed they are trying to say "ohh, not my fault"... If the project was off the rails early on, they should have seen it -- regardless of communications and adjusted (and if Oracle was not doing it's job - fired them). Obviously Oregon wants to have a scapegoat, but apparently forgot to pay them for that service.
I am working as a consultant.
My good advice to every customer is: dont buy consultant work as time and material. Buying as time and material puts the wrong incentives to everybody:
-Your own people will feel that they still can just use them as normal workers and keep all decisions (and thus responsibility) to themself
-The consultants dont care, since just doing what your own people tell them without thinking is what gets their monthly timesheets signed. If something goes wrong they can even sell more hours, not less
-The consulting company does not care (and rigthly so since that was not what you asked for) and will send you inexperiences junior consultants wherever possible.
-Coding quality has to be reviewd by your own people (or just accepted as it is)
-Your own people are usually vastly inferior at project management in comparison to the average senior consultant - in a non T&M contract the usual situation is that you get the things done in time or you will loose money.
APK, we're in the midst of a discussion based on facts and logic.
How could this involve you in any way, size, shape, or form?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Let's summarize: Oracle took money to perform a job. They disagreed with the way it was handled. Nevertheless they stayed in and kept collecting money. Now they say they had noting to do with it?
I have been working on a large data project for another state - this state has outsourced everything to 3 or 4 large companies. That itself is not so bad, but the state doesn't have anyone left to make decisions. Instead it is all left up to the vendors. It is difficult for vendors, even when trying to do the right thing, to know what the business (state) needs or wants for some things.
Trying to implement proper security controls and create separation of duties when everything is outsourced is hard to do. Especially when all vendors bid their part without expectations of having to handle new requirements.
I am sure Oracle shares some of the blame, but I bet the state is responsible for a lot too.
... that the quality assurance contractor for the project, Maximus, had this to say, "Oracle's performance is clearly lacking. Their inability to adhere to industry standards and professional software and project management tenets warrants further review."
I've worked on several fiascoes that the State of Oregon has tried to build over the last 30 years and they always end up as fiascoes. Motor vehicles, child support system, a consolidated database of Oregon state welfare recipients. They all failed for one reason. Oregon State workers are a bunch of lazy, incompetent, featherbedding incompetents.
They take off on sick leave for days at a a time without even notifying their bosses. Are promoted based on minority or gender status instead of competence, sit at their desks all day doing nothing but go to meetings coffee breaks and lunch, and have such a strong union that they can't be fired no matter how bad they are.
I don't bother working for them any more as every big project turns to shit because the workers don't care. They are FAR, FAR worse than federal workers who at least know how to effectively hand off the real work to competent contractors. Oregon State employees can't even manage that trick.
that the software was not capable of being understood, or the documentation was skanty and faulty, that the Oracle consultants were dunderheads and got in the way, on and on.
nice opportunity for a court of law and special masters to sort out. make it happen. King Ellison I is not always right.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
All of these claims have been answered elsewhere and SHOWN TO BE FALSE.
Reposting them DOES NOT MAKE THEM TRUE--THEY ARE STILL FALSE CLAIMS.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
You keep repeating the same lies as if re-posting them will magickally make them turn true.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
...but don't dismiss Oracle's arguments without examination. It may be that Oracle is trying to shift the blame, or their part of it. But, that is also the default position for governmental organizations when shit hits the fan. Is it a coincidence that almost all of the exchanges that failed or are in deep trouble chose government as the SI? Regardless how you view government, it must be conceded that there are few incentives for efficiency or success. Sadly, this also extends to contracts let by said organizations.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
So AC, you really *think* you know what you are talking about, but in fact you really don't.
Postgres - in a high transaction environment if the vacuum goes sideways you just simply crash and burn and your data gets scrambled. On top of that, I double dare you to try and move from one machine to another, much less one hard drive to another.
MySQL - ACID much?
SQLLite Uhmm for little tiny projects, sure as long as you don't need ACID or more then one person using it.
Oracle - IF and it is a BIG ONE - you actually know how to use it, (If you have had the proper training, or you have been using it forever ) It will spin circles around pretty much anything out there. Do stupid things with it and just like any of the rest of them that are enterprise class ( MS-SQL, DB2, Postgres, Informix etc. ) they will not perform up to anyone's expectations.
So please go have a big frosty glass of Shut The Fuck Up.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!