Oracle Deflects Blame For Troubled Oregon Health Care Site 163
itwbennett (1594911) writes "Oracle is gearing up for a fight with officials in Oregon over its role developing an expensive health insurance exchange website that still isn't fully operational. In a letter obtained by the Oregonian newspaper this week, Oracle co-president Safra Catz said that Oregon officials have provided the public with a 'false narrative' concerning who is to blame for Cover Oregon's woes. In the letter, Catz pointed out that Oregon's decision to act as their own systems integrator on the project, using Oracle consultants on a time-and-materials basis, was 'criticized frequently by many'. And as far as Oracle is concerned, 'Cover Oregon lacked the skills, knowledge or ability to be successful as the systems integrator on an undertaking of this scope and complexity,' she added."
Enh as much as I dislike Oracle... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes yes we had all these objections before signing (Score:5, Insightful)
We were forced to sign this contract. On gun point actually. And then they said that we should take their money or they'll break our knee caps.
You see, we are the victims here.
Larry
Re:It's Not Really Oracle (Score:3, Insightful)
Oracle's database is quite good. With proper tuning and schemas, Oracle is amazing. It's totally a hardcore geek's RDBMS.
This article is more about their consulting services. Ultimately, Oregon had the final decision. If they hired Oracle and said, "here you handle this whole thing," that's one thing. If they hired Oracle and said, "we need you for support, but we call the shots," that's entirely another. If Oregon didn't have a single person driving it, making final decisions, setting deadlines, and did all that by committee, it's easy to see how something that complex can get bogged down.
Bet your bottom dollar Oracle covered their asses with a formal spec and timeline process, and every extension of the critical path was documented and signed off on. I don't think this will look good for the state of Oregon.
Oracle has skills and knowledge? (Score:5, Insightful)
"...'Cover Oregon lacked the skills, knowledge or ability to be successful as the systems integrator on an undertaking of this scope and complexity,'
Gee, that's funny. And here I thought I was in the majority in thinking that it is in fact Oracle who lacks the skills, knowledge, or ability to fix that piece-of-shit Frankenstein they want to label a working product.
I suppose if you thought you were buying a perpetual bug and patch service, sure. They're fucking awesome at that. I might even be so bold as to say #1 in the industry.
ALL the exchanges failed (Score:4, Insightful)
All of them.
In the case of all of them failing you have to look at the common denominator because ALL of them failed.
Newsflash... Oracle was not involved in all of the exchanges.
The central problem was that the rollout was rushed for political reasons.
If it were slowed down then the republicans might have had more success killing it before implementation. Even now it might well die. So the democrats rushed the rollout.
And this is the result.
That is not Oracle's fault. We all have experience with projects that are rushed through planning to the point where they are unworkable.
That's all this is... nothing more or less.
Re:Oracle has skills and knowledge? (Score:5, Insightful)
"...'Cover Oregon lacked the skills, knowledge or ability to be successful as the systems integrator on an undertaking of this scope and complexity,'
Gee, that's funny. And here I thought I was in the majority in thinking that it is in fact Oracle who lacks the skills, knowledge, or ability to fix that piece-of-shit Frankenstein they want to label a working product.
False dichotomy, it's not one or the other.
Re:It's Not Really Oracle (Score:5, Insightful)
What you are really saying is that Oracle knew Oregon's exchange would be a POS before they even signed the consulting contract because of the lack of Oregon bureaucrat skills, but they took the contract anyway because they knew they could as they say MILK IT!
Since they knew full well it would fail, they would document everything to the hilt, including specific warnings, while padding up the consulting, knowing full well that they would never finish the job, but would get paid a pile of money anyway to add to Larry's billions.