Tangential discussion spawned by the PO Scandal

[Redmires]

Moderator Message:
The following was split off to keep this thread focussed on the postmasters. - Chris

It was a 'no win no fee' case and if it wasn't for that, the case would never have come to court. We should be thankful really.

Insofar as you accept our preposterous judicial system - itself one of the major blights on the wronged postmasters' lives - yes it was a least-bad outcome.

But perhaps a comparison should be the press coverage. The postmasters got enormously valuable support from journalists like Richard Brooks and Nick Wallis and their editors, going right back to Rebecca Thomson's original article. That'll doubtless have cost them some significant effort to convince the journos there was a good story to cover, but no money.

Tell me about it. I've subscribed to Private Eye for over 35 years. The system is run by the establishment for the establishment. That's the reason why the story was never picked up by the press until they possibly couldn't ignore it any more.

[stewamax]

This is specifically Fujitsu UK. The vanity company formerly known as ICL. Fujitsu were sold a dud (and the UK tech community knew that all along).

Yip. But Fujitsu (parent business) went into it with an open chequebook knowing that it was the only way to buy into UK government computer contracts which were awarded to ICL, ICL and ... ICL - a never-ending stream of uncompetitive State business stretching out to the heat-death of the universe.

Once 'in' they could never be removed, as PO know when they negotiate Horizon's lucrative maintenance and enhancement contracts.

No competition? Then treble the price because the PO is not only on the hook but there is only one angler.

[UncleEbenezer]

This is specifically Fujitsu UK. The vanity company formerly known as ICL. Fujitsu were sold a dud (and the UK tech community knew that all along).

Yip. But Fujitsu (parent business) went into it with an open chequebook knowing that it was the only way to buy into UK government computer contracts which were awarded to ICL, ICL and ... ICL - a never-ending stream of uncompetitive State business stretching out to the heat-death of the universe.

Once 'in' they could never be removed, as PO know when they negotiate Horizon's lucrative maintenance and enhancement contracts.

No competition? Then treble the price because the PO is not only on the hook but there is only one angler.

Contrast: HP's sorry history of bizarre acquisitions.

The one that's had headlines was Autonomy, 'cos of the lawsuits. But a few years earlier they had acquired EDS, which was a bigger player even than ICL/Fujitsu in failing UK government contracts with ever-spiralling costs.

Autonomy was acquired in the wake of Oracle's acquisition of Sun and consequently a hardware capability to rival IBM's across-the-enterprise offering. HP - a strong hardware player but without the enterprise software and support to rival the really-big two - bought Autonomy in a spectacularly ill-judged me-too attempt. Everyone knew that they massively overpaid, and even two members of their own board are on record as having warned of the fact. It turned out they not merely overpaid, but failed spectacularly to make anything of it, and ended up suing for fraud in the purchase.

I can't help thinking that Fujitsu should have had a stronger case to sue over ICL, had it chosen that path.

[Lanark]

...
But a few years earlier they had acquired EDS, which was a bigger player even than ICL/Fujitsu in failing UK government contracts with ever-spiralling costs.

Ah good old EDS, I remember landing a contract with them once, about 15 of us in a room, doing sod all for months because "you cant start work until the contract is signed"

[UncleEbenezer]

...
But a few years earlier they had acquired EDS, which was a bigger player even than ICL/Fujitsu in failing UK government contracts with ever-spiralling costs.

Ah good old EDS, I remember landing a contract with them once, about 15 of us in a room, doing sod all for months because "you cant start work until the contract is signed"

Doing sod all, but being paid. And clocking up hours to be billed to the (pending) Client. Good ol' management practices so typical of the industry in Blighty.

[edit to ask] Was your pending client by any chance someone whose ultimate source of funds was the UK taxpayer?

[didds]

Ah good old EDS, I remember landing a contract with them once, about 15 of us in a room, doing sod all for months because "you cant start work until the contract is signed"

Potential de-rail ....


A bit like a contract I had with BT once ... 4 of us on a continental shift pattern of 12 hour shifts for a month. Though I arranged to do "all nights" and swapped appropriately.

Then two dropped out on renewal leaving just two of us of course... so i said I'd do nights and he could do days. He then suggested that we could swap every few days. I gave him a second or two then said "so who is doing the 24 hour shift when that happens". He didn't understand. So I explained...

There was actually NOTHING to do. We were hired as hardware engineers for some physical based linux servers (that's how long ago it was!) - I was a linux sys admin at least (and I had some h/w support history too) but others were java developers and the like. It was clearly some management cover-their-4rse move. I never even saw the servers and they were in a data centre through a door off the office. This scenario went on for several weeks - about ten or so. With us doing 12 x 7 ... though then the client got concerned that we were doing that, so instead said we were paid for 12 x 7 but only had to be on the premises for 8 x7 but available on-call for the other 4 of our 12. So I arranged to arrive 2 hours into that 12 and leave with 2 hours to go on the basis that once I was home a call THEN would mean by the time I returned it would be the start of the day shift anyway. I used to turn up at about 2200, and after an hour or so of sitting around reading whatever, go and swag out in a sleeping bag in an adjacent office (the operators knew where i was "just in case" ), wake up at 0530, have a cup of coffee and drive home.

One renewal offer I had a problem in that I was due to go to a gig. So i couldn't cover that one shift. I was told then i couldn't have the renewal (in retrospect goodness knows what they would have done with just ONE contractor for a 24 x 7 cover! LOL ). So I invoked a substitution clause and my mate - a s/w engineer - went along for the shift. He understandably couldn't believe he could earn a substantial sum for having a kip. I did point out it was very unusual and not at all typical!

It was immensely de-skilling...

oh - just remembered ... it was a very bizarre set up in that I was contracted to an agency, that was contracted to some body-shop that had the contract from BT... so BT were in effect paying 2 lots of agency fees on top of what I was earning (alternatively I was losing two lots of agency fees on the actual rate but that's how IT contracting worked in those days and I was on what I considered a good rate anyway)

[Lanark]

[edit to ask] Was your pending client by any chance someone whose ultimate source of funds was the UK taxpayer?

How did you KNOW!!!

The funny part was I still had to fill in a time sheet detailing all the work I didnt do.

I quit to do something more interesting before any real work started, so I kind of imagine that team is still sat there twiddling their thumbs all these years later.