No experience of the Co Op but,...
... I was Blue for a while, and saw one massive project for a UK charity collapse, largely because IBM had massively oversold the solution, and were creating something far bigger and more complex than was needed. The charity wanted a web site and the infrastructure to host it, IBM managed to interpret that as a P-Series and 16 LPARS (if I recall correctly).
But as we say in the (non - IBM) office, if we're feeling particularly evil, we give our customers what they asked for,... not what they need. We weren't there when the Co Op had the conversations with IBM, so it's hard to know which donkey to pin the tail on.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
