Pennsylvania Sues IBM Over Jobless Claims System Upgrade (cnet.com)

Pennsylvania has sued IBM for $170 million, claiming the company failed to deliver a promised upgrade to its outdated system of processing unemployment claims. From a report: IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment but a company representative told the Associated Press the suit had no merit and the company would fight it. The suit stems from a 2006 fixed-price contract awarded to IBM for $109.9 million with a completion date of February 2010, the state said in a press release. As delays and costs mounted, the state let the contract lapse in 2013 when an independent assessment determined the project had a high risk of failure.

Comments

Outdated?? What!?

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife lost her job in 2009 and filed for unemployment in PA... online.. in 5 minutes... and she had a debit card in the mail the following day with money already on it.

What the fuck, exactly, is so outdated about that?

Re:Outdated?? What!?

[Cajun Hell]

What the fuck, exactly, is so outdated about that?

Maybe it means that the system is written in Java instead of C#, Oracle and Microsoft salespeople aren't getting big license commissions, and the CTO isn't getting an enormous kickback.

Re:Outdated?? What!?

[avandesande]

I built a new system once because the old one was on a minicomputer that HP had pulled support on and they were running out of old machines to cannibalize for parts.

Re:Outdated?? What!?

[chipschap]

Heh. I once worked at a place where a project manager thought (correctly) that IBM was doing a poor job as systems integrator, so he brought in Oracle instead. They shipped in their busload of IROCs (idiots right outta college) and things got worse and worse until finally the project was ended and declared a success by senior management.

Re:Outdated?? What!?

[plopez]

you're. no one deserves unemployment. they are deserved a job.

Re:Outdated?? What!?

[plopez]

you could have set up a simulator. a vm you know

Re:Outdated?? What!?

[avandesande]

The emulator came out five years after we released the re-write

Redundant

[HangingChad]

After working with them on Navy projects saying "IBM" and "failed to deliver" is pretty redundant.

Nice headline there

[chispito]

The headline is kind of rough. I first parsed it out as "System upgrade claims that Pennsylvania sues IBM over jobless."

Seems on PAR for IBM

[jediborg]

I have only used 2 IBM products in a professional setting, one of which was ClearCase (the other I forget) In both cases the tech was horribly out-of-date. Seemed like it was programmed in the 1980's, i originally assumed both software packages where free. Then i found out the company actually pays HUDGE contract money out to IBM to support these products that haven't been updated (from my perspective) in over ten years. Turns out the company keeps paying IBM because of vendor-lock-in, their data is basically held hostage because IBM refuses to program ways to migrate it out of the IBM proprietary format.

totally anecdotal, but i was told by a senior engineer that "IBM doesn't make software anymore, they just keep taking payments from these gigantic legacy contracts, occasionally fooling a new company into signing up based on the name recognition of IBM"

Re:Seems on PAR for IBM

[The Evil Atheist]

ClearCase started out as Rational products that got bought by IBM. Rational products just suck in both concept and implementation. IBM just snaps up companies and then screw over the developers until they leave or RA'd. Then they sell it off to companies like HCL because they didn't know what to do with the products they acquired.

Do these ever work as planned?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it did, how could I.B.M. overcharge them out the wazoo?

NEVER

[sexconker]

Never use IBM or Oracle.

On time. On budget. Functional. Pick zero.

Re:NEVER

[sysrammer]

Or, Accenture. I don't understand why companies keep doing projects with them when every single one of them I've heard of has failed. I've at least seen IBM Global Services succeed on two projects. Both took over twice as long and cost over twice as much, but at least they were able to release something that worked.

The most successful executives are the ones that are able to evade risk. Working with a BigFirm allows the exec to look good..."nobody ever got fired for recommending BigFirm", while, by the time the project sinks into a morass, said exec will be long gone, at another company, recommending...you guessed it, BigFirm.

Re:NEVER

[Anonymous Coward]

Seconded. They royally fucked up PA's tax systems to the tune of $250 MILLION DOLLARS.

Nobody had a clue. I worked on a standalone system that exchanged data at a few points with the main ledger. The old system being a COBOL mainframe, this was done through fixed-field flat files overnight.

Of course, the H1Bs absolutely could not adhere to the old format because, well, H1Bs. The official excuse was that they were designing a common interface for all tax types (we had some weird specific fields at the end) and it would be realtime. So we had a meeting to get the new specs from them. That turned into several weeks of us asking the clown and the clown saying he's get back to us next meeting. I hate to say, I just stopped going, management was already sold and no information was exchanged so what was the point?

Lo and behold, months and months later, when we finally got a spec, it was...surprise, a flat file with everything needlessly rearranged and numerous weird specific fields kludged onto the end. Oh, and batches overnight because the promise of realtime was a lie. No improvement at all, just stupid busywork for everybody.

Of course this was pretty much SOP for them.

At one point, they discovered that the system couldn't handle 0 tax returns. Payments, fine, refunds, fine, but 0? System either crashed (and I mean really crashed, as in servers had to be rebooted) or THREW AWAY the filing record. We couldn't tell if anybody had filed if it was an even return. Who the hell builds a ledger on a framework that can't handle 0? H1Bs, that's who!

And that was _after_ they had implemented the corporate tax part, spent a year mailing bills to dead people and then another year not mailing bills to anybody. For two years the appeals bureau had to cope with all of the deadline/backdating screw-ups this caused. It wasn't isolated either, the system "lost" data like crazy because, well, H1Bs. Everything they touched was a disaster.

Now, when the tax system finally got out to end users inside Revenue, it was a complete basket case from a UI standpoint too. The legacy program came through an IBM terminal program with weird codes to trigger functions because it was a console and there was no easy GUI.

So you'd think with a brand new GUI they'd do menus, right? Wrong! Everything still launched from codes....except DIFFERENT RANDOM codes. Because H1Bs. Once you got into a screen, there were some controls, but has anybody ever had the misfortunate of using an SAP GUI? That's right, clicking a drop down list of 10 items takes 3 minutes to populate. Every single time you click it. Because H1Bs.

And before most of the corporate bugs were fixed, the locusts moved on to income and sales. They managed to fuck up sales so badly that the old system stopped mailing sales tax license renewals. Oh, it was trying to print them, but whatever printing functionality they'd stolen from expert sexchange, err, written themselves, just silently dropped all print requests for months.

It's was just one fuckup after another with them. Accenture, from top to bottom, belongs in prison.

Re:NEVER

[Anonymous Coward]

> because, well, H1Bs

To be fair, that's the problem on nearly all projects with contractors. After 34 years of working on software and most of that managing contractors, I've seen that over and over a again. If something is done wrong, they are either going to be gone or get paid per hour to fix the problem. There's no incentive to do the job right or fast.

Short version...

[__aaclcg7560]

The consultants made out like bandits.

Re:Short version...

[Anonymous Coward]

The consultants made out like bandits.

Slightly longer version: the lawyers noticed the consultants making out like bandits and wanted their cut.

Milestone Payments

[bill_mcgonigle]

Who authorized the payment in full on a project that wasn't delivered? Why are they trying to claw back money that should never have been payed? Were the people responsible for contracts stupid or corrupt? In either case, what happened to them?

Re:Milestone Payments

[rahvin112]

Government often doesn't have the option (legally) to withhold payment. That you can't see the reasons why it's like that shows you aren't informed enough to comment.

Re:Milestone Payments

[plopez]

1) probably the Governor as part of his streamline the government "do more with less" philosophy. (Ignoring the fact that that is a violation of the laws of Thermodynamics)

2) Because they realized they got screwed.

3) Hard to tell. Or just following the legislation directing the project to be done.

4) Probably brushed up their resumes and left if they were smart. Or possibly became consultants helping to keep the crap going with bubble gum and bailing wire.

Re:Milestone Payments

[plopez]

Mines fine. The only time I had a problem was a couple of summers ago when he went on vacation. His fill in mad a few errors.

I probably need to see the specs

[Trailer Trash]

I probably need to see the specs, but I really can't imagine what they would be doing that would cost $100M for processing unemployment claims for a state. It's just not that complicated of a problem.

Re:I probably need to see the specs

[plopez]

Here are a few basic rules I know of which can come into play *in my jurisdiction* (the rules vary by state)
1) you get unemployment. But not if you quit. Or you get injured, workman's comp and medicare usually cover that unless under special circumstances. You must be registered and actively looking for work.

2) You cannot file for unemployment until two weeks after you get laid off. If you get severance pay you have to wait to use all that up first then you can file. Though you can register for training course work, job search help, resume writing classes etc. Except under special circumstances. Ditto if you get cashed out by a WARN action.

3)You can work and 50% of what you earn is reduced from your unemployment (A person who does even spot labor has a better chance of getting a job plus it helps the person's morale). Until you exceed your unemployment pay out, then you are considered re-employed though still registered in case the temp employment drops off in a few weeks.

4) Everyone start with 26 weeks of unemployment.

5) If you spot work as in #3 then for every dollar you return to the state it goes to into your 26 week maximum payout pool. So you could have unemployment beyond 26 weeks.

6) The rules can vary by industry as well

7) Victims of natural disaster and terrorist attacks get special coverage and exemptions. If their employers goes out of business they often have longer periods of time to find work.

8) These rules can change by an act of congress or the stroke of a governors pen at anytime.

Good Luck With That, PA

[andywest]

Pennsylvania sues IBM as Indiana sued it in 2009. I am still amazed how IBM can still milk the giant cow that is state government. I guess too many politicians, in Pennsylvania as in Indiana during the Mitch governorship, are so old that they can remember the days back before 1990, when IBM was the computer company.

Re:Good Luck With That, PA

[MightyMartian]

They're all just as bad; IBM, Oracle, Accenture, Deloitte, HP. It's almost irrelevant which one you pick, so punishing one simply forwards the next contract on to the other, who will do just the same thing.

Up here in British Columbia, the Provincial government for decades had a pretty effective in-house IT team, but in seeking savings the government has steadily in-house expertise in favor of private contractors. While not all the contractors I've seen are inept, when it comes to rolling out the big systems, you end up with one of the Big IT firms, and the expected inevitably occurs.

Re:Good Luck With That, PA

[quetwo]

Michigan sued IBM over their Secretary of State (DMV) system in 2015. They actually went with milestone payments, but IBM refused to release to source code of the last signed-off milestone . The state still hasn't rolled out the new system yet.

IBM and Unemployment

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of ironic that a company known for firing North American workers and replacing them with Indians is working on an unemployment project. On second thought, they are masters of making people unemployed.

IBM Nazgûls

[Lead Butthead]

I wonder if the Nazgûl of late is as persistent as Nazgûl of old?

Tip Off

[puddingebola]

The tip off to the state was when the punch cards started wearing out and the mechanical crank handle broke.

Re:The state of Penn should blame themselves

[chipschap]

A long ways down from the company that created OS/2 (but then failed to know how to market it, despite its clear superiority).

That's what you get with guest workers.

[sethstorm]

Other things aside, I'd bet they contributed to the problem in more ways than one.

Re:No surprise here

[plopez]

HPE and HP Inc. are right behind them

Re:The state of Penn should blame themselves

[plopez]

They also got stabbed in the back by MS.

Re:Priorities

[plopez]

That's like the recipe for blue whale soup. Step 1, catch and clean one blue whale...