back to article I don't know but I've been told: IBM slurps AU$95.5m ERP delivery contract from Aussie DoD

IBM will help Aussie warfighters keep track of their bullets, after winning a Au$95.5m ($67m/£54m) contract to implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for the Australian Department of Defence. This is just the first phase of the contract, and it could end up being worth as much as $1bn – the DoD has broken the …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Where to even start?

    It's 2019 and organisations/corporations still give IBM major contracts despite their terminal decline and reams of failures? (did someone at DoD talk to, oh I dunno, Queensland?)

    Does the Australian not have on-shore requirements that would prohibit all their deliverables to be built/developed in India? Are they all going to get NV-1 and up?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    Services from IBM and software from SAP? I'm warming up the popcorn bowl on this one. Should be interesting.

    (Icon shows artist's conception of final result of this outsourcing initiative.)

  3. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
    Alert

    Hate to play devils advocate...

    Yeah I know... and I know it doesn't make for good exciting clickable copy; but across the ERP sector you only ever seem to hear about the fuckups. Not the successes. I'll assume that the ADoD will be going for SAP in a PaaS form which will remove 30% of the ERP implementation headache in one go.

    Saying that, it's IBM right? Anything could happen!!!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Re: Hate to play devils advocate...

      I would not count on the ADoD using a PaaS/SaaS solution from SAP. A lot of defense-related software deployments are still strictly on-prem, and even not internet connected, to avoid potential security breaches.

      (To be fair, my experience with SAP was being a "power user" in an SAP ERP/CRM implementation for my $750 million annual-revenues employer, which was spending $30 million on getting this deployment up and running over the space of 3 years.. If you are a company and you are spending over 1% of your annual revenue on one system, that is heinously expensive.. And the system was hideously user-unfriendly, hence the need for $30 million spent largely on consultants, developers and system integration.)

  4. marky_boi

    95 million???? Hah! Double that...

    I bet they are already screaming variation... and have one hand waving as a distraction and the other rummaging in the pockets....

  5. FozzyBear
    Devil

    "This agreement is a testament to our 40-year partnership with the Australian government,"

    No it's a testament to the fact that few of the IT companies have the necessary clearance levels and certifications that allow them to work with/for DoD.

    Getting those Clearances and certifications are a fucking nightmare ( And I'm sugar coating it). Rather than jumping through all those hoops, SAP were probably happy to take the licencing fees and run and leave IBM to deal with the DoD.

    Man, IBM implementing SAP software for the Department of Defence. I'm looking forward to the news articles in 12 months

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      news articles in 12 months?

      I doubt there will be anything to read about in 12 months, give them time...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    DEFMIS MKII

    With the other well known provider involved I expect the inevitable SNAFU. I would like to use the sarcasm tag if it existed

    <Sarc> I for one, welcome our new overlords, whoever they maybe. </Sarc Because we wont have a working Defence Force. Lots of managers though.

    Background: DEFMIS was a 1980s attempt to have a single IT and financial provider inside Oz Defence, IBM. Needless to say, Defence already had a working system called Dept of Finance. Mostly it meant bits of paper torn from reports at end of month and attempts to get OS2 everywhere instead of a daily summary of financial activities. A lot of software did not like OS2, perhaps due to Novell being in mix. Workloads went up, processes slower, you know the drill. Rumours of red Ferratis' appearing at Fort Fumble soon after contract signing were not verified.

    We need an Oz version of Lewis Page

  7. murrby

    So is this over budget and late yet?

    1. Denarius
      Mushroom

      Overbudget? SOP. Merely late ? bwahahahaha. Another great use of Oz taxpayer dollars subsidising IBMs bonus team IMHO

  8. PeterM42
    Thumb Down

    Outsourcer says:

    "We will do it this way."

    ADoD: "OK"

    IBM: "More money, please."

    ADoD: "OK"

    Repeat

    Repeat

    Repeat........until

    FAIL!.

  9. Rohime

    May as well just call it a $billion to IBM right now. Rinse and Repeat.

    WOW. I really would have thought the government would have learnt by now.

    IBM. They are absolute *masters* of delay

    IBM. They are absolute wizards at audit trail - 'put in writing that its the customer fault' - regardless of truth.

    IBM: To them truth means: Choose any ONE from this set "The Truth", "The whole truth" or "nothing but the truth". Never more than one from the set remember.

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