Trying again with IBM

Maybe the second time will be the charm.

The turnaround of the troubled $863 million data center contract between Texas and IBM Corp. has cleared its first major hurdle.

On Tuesday, state officials released an “agreement in principle” for restructuring the contract to consolidate the data centers of 27 state agencies into two streamlined and upgraded facilities. The agreement provides a broad framework for hammering out a final deal by late February.

The mammoth data center project, launched in 2007, has been bedeviled by delays, equipment failures and poor service. State agencies involved in the project had raised more than 800 issues with the contract and the service they have been getting from IBM.

[…]

Details are scarce in this early agreement, and the next step will be to negotiate the nuts and bolts of the modified contract, including narrowing the scope of IBM’s responsibilities.

One possible change could be that IBM will no longer maintain the thousands of remote servers across the state.

Turning that responsibility back over to the agencies may be cheaper, more efficient and fall in line with the agencies’ wishes, the agreement says. It would also free IBM from some its most persistent and costly problems.

Well, so much got screwed up with this the first time around that you’d think it’d have to be better this time. But never underestimate the potential for a Rick Perry privatization project to go south.

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2 Responses to Trying again with IBM

  1. Pingback: The State of Texas versus IBM – Off the Kuff

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