I dunno - the bidders:
Atlas - (EDS (prime), Fujitsu, Cogent, General Dynamics, LogicaCMG)
IBM - (IBM (prime), BAE Systems, Computacenter, Steria, ntl, Echelon)
Lockheed Martin - (Lockheed Martin (prime), Deloitte, Hewlett Packard, Qinetiq, SAIC, Unisys)
Radii - (CSC (prime), BT, Capgemini, Thales UK)
You're basically talking the biggest IT suppliers / service providers in the world, so certainly not tinpot. Well thats the theory anyway...
I think the point is that if the big companies cant even get it right (repeatedly) then you'd think that someone would take notice and not outsource to people with a proven track record of failure (think NHS, pensions, and every other major government IT fiasco over the last 10 years, and think what the common denominator in a lot of them was. Any of those names above just happen to crop up?)
IT promises lots, but delivers little. I'm surprised your productivity plummeted when you're systems went down - I would have thought it would have gone through the roof without computers to screw it all up!
Oh - I work for one of those companies mentioned above, and worked on the DII(F) bid for another...
The one thing outsourcing has taught me is that the bid promises bear no relation to what you get delivered, its a complete waste of our tax money when the suppliers main role is to rip you off as much as possible, you'll get absolutely no loyalty from your suppliers, the supplier will not resource the account sufficiently, your service will disappear down the pan, end up "offshored" to India to maximise their profits, you'll have no comeback, everything costs, you get absolutely nothing free, you'll be fighting for it all the way, and in 5-10 years time when the contract is up for grabs (and just as the service gets to an acceptable level), you'll end up with a new supplier and go straight back to square 1.
I'm not planning on sticking around in outsourced IT for long....
