It's a very frustrating situation for all of us. Having been closely involved I hope this will shed some light.
AIS bought the software as an "off the shelf" solution from Thales IS. I understand that Phil Bate was not the manager of UK AIS at the time that decision was made.
We know that the bulk of the problems are to do with availability (outages) and the results that are obtained from the software.
Thales IS should be roundly condemned for having provided software that is still not working properly three months AFTER it went live. (Any bugs should have been sorted out BEFORE going live)
Anyone know a good way of exerting pressure on Thales IS?
Because the Project Manager declines to discuss anything with me and Thales IS, for resons of client confidentiality, cannot; I can only give you a fairly sketchy view but to me it looks like this.
AIS are not computer experts and certainly can't set all this up on their own. Thales IS are the software vendors and they and NATS IT department are responsible between them for providing and maintaining the hardware and software platform which AIS use to deliver the goods. That hardware and software platform has performed in a manner that is unsatisfactory to a significant proportion of users for over three months. That failure has to be the fault of NATS IT or Thales IS, or both of them.
AIS have overall responsibility for the project but don't have the in-house expertise themselves to fight their own corner. Their Project Manager actually works for one of their suppliers, which is not a situation that you would expect to see in normal business.
AIS certainly have overall responsibility but we won't see a significant breakthrough until NATS IT and Thales IS start delivering.
Mike
Last edited by Mike Cross; 19th Nov 2002 at 21:44.