
Project Sovereign
Ah, I remember the internal backronym: Sod Off Vallance, Every Reorg Ever Invented Got Nowhere.
BT is outsourcing management of its mainframe estate to IBM in a five-year agreement that kicks off today. And while it may be April Fools' Day, some incumbent staff being TUPEd across to Big Blue aren't laughing. Staff at the British telco were told about the move in January, then formal consultations with the CWU and …
1. So they have plenty to spaff on IBM (Not British) see here .. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/01/bbc_broadband_levy/
2. They expect us to fund them, and they choose IBM, nobody ever got retained for buying IBM :)
3. IBM is BBC?
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/01/bbc_broadband_levy/
https://www.cbronline.com/cloud/ibm-wins-5-year-bbc-contract-to-drive-mobile-and-cloud-transformation-4859910/
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/450280976/BBC-outsources-finance-and-accounting-technology-to-IBM
4. Its 1st April
One site where I worked they just renamed the current data centres as the <insert company name here> cloud... job done, now we're in the cloud and IBM got the client to swallow that!
Step 2 seemed to be to parachute in a load of IBMers to bill their time, things gradually stopped getting done for the client and it looked to me that the plan was to drink the client dry and then jump ship.
6 years down the road and the client is thoroughly pissed off and looking to get out of the contract....
"The five-year contract with IBM nestles well with BT's intention to close the public switched telephone network by 2025."
I wonder. Applying the basic law of project timelines "close the PSTN by 2025" translates to "close the PSTN starting in 2025 at the earliest". When that happens we can reasonably expect customer support calls to go up just as the contract for supporting this system supporting customer service ends. From IBM's PoV the renewal nestles well with that, maybe from the BT side not so much.
I learned a little Hindi specifically for the purpose of telling "Jack from Mumbai" to go forth and multiply himself. I found the novel Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra to be useful (lots of police slang). Here's what I have:
Chubbarao = Shut Up (say it with force)
I am a burra Sahib = I am a great lord
You are a chota-wallah = You are a small person of no value (if the caller is female, chota-wallee)
And the killer "Are your mother and father proud of how you earn your money?". I got one of them to scream and hang up.
Current favourite: I say "You have reached the BT Business Support Helpdesk. All calls to this number cost £25. Please have your credit card ready. Read out the long number across the front". They hang up before I have finished saying that. And if they don't, I repeat it.
The former state telco said the deal will "allow the transferring team to focus on best-in-class mainframe delivery, supported by a wider team." It added the outsourcing will also give the BT team moving to IBM broader career pathways"
Well, good luck finding "the wider team", and as for "IBM broader career pathways" that usually means a career outside of IBM.
My commiserations.
having worked at a place years ago that forked the employees over to I've Been Mislead, stealing employees pensions, and then having IBM dump a whole lot of those folks prior to the contract ending.... and then watching the same thing happen years later (again - some folks are slow learners) and watching as big blue proceeded to dump more and more of the experienced (yes, older) workers and try to force many more into relocation (at your own expense)...
Ah, fuck 'em.
So, they have a team that is high functioning (despite underpaying) and now they have transferred that team to a 3rd party, who have to honour the team's Ts and Cs / liabilities etc (so no cheaper)
Then they are going to pay that supplier the cost of the team + supplier's margin.
And sell the supplier some old kit (all all know how good a dealer trading is!), then the new supplier is going to replace the kit with new kit they supply and BT is going to effectively rent the service back?
I don't have an MBA, so I don't see how paying more for something (that was previously heavily sweated and working well) is good value for BT's shareholders...
M
I expect the people working on these databases are of a certain age and an expensive recruitment and training exercise would be on the cards if it stayed in-house. Presumably IBM won't have to pay themselves the licensing costs for the metal and tools and OS either.
I can see how you could make a case to do this based on avoiding a big bill quite soon, even if it means quite high bills in the medium term.
IBM/BT ..... Goliaths Entertaining Davids in Plain Text View of All Other Surreal and Stealthy Operating Systems.
Are IBM real good or virtually crap at simply following BT instructions for CSS/COSMOSS Feeds ?
IT never takes long to find out.
How real good or virtually crap are BT at providing IBM Special Server Instruction Services ?
IT never takes long to find out the lay of the lands in that most particular and refreshingly peculiar field of exploration and experimentation.
And refreshingly peculiar because one never surely knows what the future brings, although if you can dream it so good that you can love it and are able to share those great creatively imaginative thoughts with everybody, are future pictures easily enough universally exchanged and grand master plans changed to accommodate such a Totally Unusual Event and Absolutely Fabulous Opportunity.
Does Blighty Do Almighty ? And that question to Boris and Dominic of the Downing Street Lair Gang, Gung Ho Tories gone all Crazy Nation Rogue Native? Or have they only just half come out?
That's an answer surely of instant great interest to the Register and El Regers, for yes leads us further on into how and no identifies a false prophets and failed enterprises ...... and a Rank Eton Mess of an Horrendous Prank to Boot Out or Reboot Rooted at the Cabinet Responsibility Heart of UKGBNI Government ?
It's a bit of a no-brainer the right answer always for immensely fast further action satisfying those sorts of instrumental questions.
I thought they switched over to some awful Oracle product for Customer Service. If I think hard enough, I may even remember some of the transaction codes...
Many years ago, BT did this with other IT staff. Server Support, and I think even the DBAs, got TUPE'd over to HP. A few years later, they were all TUPE'd back to BT.