This Robert X. Cringely article talks about a contract that Microsoft just won with the U.K.'s National Healthcare System (NHS). They are betting big that they can do what the Lockheed Martin's, CSC and EDS's of the world cannot; build a working enterprise system.
I have seen how these large companies infest organizations and it is sickening. I work next to the group that is implementing our financial accounting system and it drives me nuts. There are 8 people in a conference room for half of the day every day. How can that be productive? I know financial accounting systems are a beast of a whole different kind, but does it really require building by committee?
I would love to see a documentary on how Microsoft actually executes the development of that system. Bob predicts that they will have 2 managers and 12 developers working on the core peice of the puzzle. It would be nice to be able to show my upper management a documentary on how big systems could be built.
Posted by carl at November 11, 2004 08:49 PM
Of course, the EDS's and the Lockheed's of the world have their problems, but are the Microsoft's typically better? While they certainly have brilliant coders, they suffer from try-too-hard-and-do-nothing-well-itis. I think you're right to expect that they'll deliver a system on time and on budget, but will it save their client money? I bet it ends up having disastrous usability problems and extremely high training costs.
I bet Bob's wrong about the 2+20 thing too :)
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