In Reply to: Services a W/W Problem for IBM?? posted by Freddy on 03 January 2004 at 09:21:42:
IBM very rarely won Central Government business (ever) for a whole variety of reasons including preferential procurement policies (official and unofficial), the price sensitivity of the market and the refusal to commit long-term resources to future situations (3 years ahead of order) at the expense of current-year targets. These things have been true since 1974 at latest and are true still. And they apply just as much to outsourcing contracts as to old-fashioned "mainframe" procurements. Now that there is much less to differentiate IBM from many competitors, one could argue that this factors are even more important.
Even allowing for that, why would anyone expect IBM to win IR is beyond me (even without Mr Churchhouse's "revelations"). MoD is surely not going to choose an American Company unless it has to and as for the NHS .. well maybe if one were smoking something particularly unusual...
The more amazing thing would have been if IBM had won any of them.
No doubt all of the salesmen were valiant.. plus ca change..