Local governments aren't businesses – so why are they force-fed business software? - Oracle's repeated public sector failures prove a different approach is needed

makingStuffForFun , 11 months ago

In Australia they are businesses. They have CEOs, they have their own ABN (Australian Business Number), etc. Not only that, police do also, as do Child Support, and more. In fact, the state of Queensland (QLD) is an entity registered in the United States. Or, so according to the document that was floating around a few years back. Interesting stuff indeed. Edit: Brigalow Corporation for anyone interested in researching it.

Motavader , 11 months ago

In my field, the way I’ve seen Oracle contracts rationalized is the same way IBM contracts are rationalized… they’re stupid expensive, usually under deliver, but they’re the biggest names. When the project goes south, the buyer can tell their superiors “well we hired IBM, and they’re the best, so what else could I have done?” It’s a form of of CYA.

uriel238 , 11 months ago

You know what would cover more asses? Having all government software open source.

It’ll also assure data security is priority one, which it is embarrasingly not in US federal departments (and probably most states)

Motavader , 11 months ago

I don’t disagree, but they still need devs to build and maintain the custom functions required. So then they sign up with Red Hat and still pay huge dollars. Unless they hire in house devs, which they rarely seem to want to do (at the levels needed for these projects).

uriel238 , 11 months ago

Considering the DoD hires in-house devs, and the intelligence sector is supposed to (whether or not they do is another matter), this doesn’t seem to be a terrible notion. It would also give the NSA incentive to do its real job, that is, standardize the protocols for electronic communication so that they’re robustly secure rather than spying on Americans.

And by making everything obligatory open source, it would fill out a public-domain library of data logistics code.

realitista , 11 months ago

C’mon, Oracle’s business tools don’t just fail in government, they fail in business too… So at least it’s an on par performance.

RickRussell_CA , 11 months ago

I mean… the headline is basically wrong. There are plenty of purpose-built tools for public administration, often configured and supported by the same big players (e.g. IBM). I’ve worked with several of them.

But I think the article hints at the real problem:

They are more complex, less well funded, more prone to change as democratic needs evolve

Governments have requirements, often legislative in origin, that making no f*cking sense and that are incredibly tricky to model in software, because they’re written by legislators who have a poor understanding of automation and how to write clear prose. And those requirements change with the stroke of a pen. Keeping up with them means the constant attention of a large team of software developers.

By contrast, most commercial enterprises can pivot to line their processes up with whatever the industry common practice is. Governments rarely have that freedom.

This statement seems incredibly naive to me:

Build an equivalent stack as a conceptual framework for local government needs and processes, and the things they all have in common will create a huge market for sustainable services despite no two organizations being the same.

The entire reason that governments go to companies like Oracle and SAP for help is that building, maintaining, and changing bespoke applications, and the full stacks to support bespoke applications, in a way that is compliant with government-grade change management is incredibly expensive. The entire selling point of tailoring a commercial ERP system is that it should nominally do a pretty good job of handling “the things they all have in common” at least as well as anything you build yourself. The projects still fail because accomodating the stuff that IS different ends up being a bespoke software project all of its own, and because things that appeared to be “in common” turn out to require bespoke configuration, because the government bean-counters didn’t tell you about a bunch of the nitpicky requirements up front.

The prosaically simple explanation for these failures is that companies like Oracle over-promise, but they do that because almost ANY contractor has to over-promise and under-price to get a government contract.

Source: I work for a company like Oracle, and I work on projects for regional governments.

p03locke , 11 months ago

less well funded

They don’t have to be. Legislators can, you know, funding the fucking departments that need it. But that’s an entirely different subject…

By contrast, most commercial enterprises can pivot to line their processes up with whatever the industry common practice is.

Not always. Sometimes it’s pivoting to whatever is making them the most money. Or eating their own dog food to prove their product, even if that product sucks.

The entire reason that governments go to companies like Oracle and SAP for help is that building, maintaining, and changing bespoke applications, and the full stacks to support bespoke applications, in a way that is compliant with government-grade change management is incredibly expensive. The entire selling point of tailoring a commercial ERP system is that it should nominally do a pretty good job of handling “the things they all have in common” at least as well as anything you build yourself.

Yes, it is incredibly expensive, and sometimes these huge corporations think they can just do it the same way they did it with State X and hope that State Y can just map terms. And then they crash and burn hard because they don’t understand that state laws are different, and sometimes you have to put in effort and time and money to actually get a working product. Corpos want to put in the least amount of work and money to get as much profit as possible from governments, and some of them have been burned so badly by that mentality that they look for better solutions. Often, there’s not any great solutions and their infrastructure suffers.

the government bean-counters didn’t tell you about a bunch of the nitpicky requirements up front

Have you even seen a government RFP? They tell you. Every. Single. Requirement. In detail, in triplicate, in sometimes unreasonable or unrealistic terms, under 800+ pages that a team of experts need to pour over and that’s before there’s even any sort of contract negotiation that requires the team of lawyers.

Source: I work for a company that comes in after companies like Oracle have fucked up so royally that governments are begging for a quality product

RickRussell_CA , 11 months ago

Not always. Sometimes it’s pivoting to whatever is making them the most money. Or eating their own dog food to prove their product, even if that product sucks.

Sure. The ability to pivot has a lot to do with whether the process is fundamental to the way they make money. The more fundamental it is (part of their “core competency”, as Weird Al would say), the more likely they will have a “secret sauce” that they can’t change (or even openly discuss until you are contracted, onboarded, and NDAed).

think they can just do it the same way they did it with State X and hope that State Y can just map terms

With respect, that’s the same error that I’m accusing the article of making. You can’t just tack on complex bespoke development on an open system and expect to get the results you want for cheap.

Have you even seen a government RFP? They tell you. Every. Single. Requirement.

Ehh… I respectfully disagree.

I work in the US, and I’d say that what you just said is true for a subset of well-specified federal contracts.

But at the state and local government level? It’s not true at all. I’ve done requirements gathering at the state and local government level and it’s like herding cats. The contract itself will have high-faluting language about “the contractor shall implement an information processing system to X, Y, and Z”, but as for HOW you’re going to X, Y, and Z, figuring that out all comes after the ink is dry on the contract. And there’s no guarantee that X, Y, and Z actually make any sense in light of the data and capabilities that the state or local government actually has. That language came from legislation, or the mind of a high ranking bureaucrat, not any of the people who do the literal day-to-day work.

iegod , 11 months ago

I work with government agencies from multiple countries (n/a and EU) and their requirements are not as good as you’re selling.

yoz , 11 months ago

Mostly because of incompetent managers and also they are under resourced.

BombOmOm , 11 months ago

Oracle is well known for putting out an extremely expensive product that competitors implement better. It boggles my mind anyone chooses them rather than doing their best to put as many miles between them and the Oralce rep as possible.

Ringmasterincestuous , 11 months ago

👀 - Australian Government

9point6 , 11 months ago

I think it’s basically tech Scientology at this point

People get indoctrinated as oracle people and then they go around actively advocating for it to other easily manipulated people that don’t know better and take as much money as possible from them.

Oh yeah and they sue ｅｖｅｒｙｏｎｅ

p03locke , 11 months ago

Them and IBM. Everything IBM touches turns to shit. They are still hawking mainframes to poor saps that’ll fork over the money on them.

aesthelete , 11 months ago

There’s multiple companies that run this “database with a barely usable UI” as a service model, and they’re all somehow huge. They all get into the customers with some sort of sales blitz by promising the world, and then by the time you go to implement everything requires millions of dollars worth of customization. Then they wind up referring you to their “gold partners” who only charge you a half million to implement the two screens or whatever you need.

There’s SAP, Salesforce, Oracle, and I’m sure more.

Why do people buy this garbage?

pdxfed , 11 months ago

Inertia. Is. A. Bitch.

Early mover advantage, and understanding how the public sector works…that is to say slowly. You sell a 10-year contract and it’s going to take them that long to train a user. Public sector employees don’t get enough exposure to technology and just try to survive learning how to use the awful tools they’re given, which is long outdated. The pain points creates a negative reinforcement to change, use and process improvement, all which could drive adoption of new software.

Much like Apple, I despise Oracle but you have to acknowledge the absolute corner they have on lucrative, long-term sucker organizations. A 20-year-old with a few friends and a few months could create something more usable than PeopleSoft.