Two sides of the ‘Big Blue lemon’ row

From Manila Standard Today

It’s easy to get worked up over the raging war between the Government Service Insurance System and the Philippine office of software giant International Business Machines.

You can take the side of the state pension fund and lament that the crash of the Integrated Loans, membership, Acquired Assets and Account Management System has caused inordinate delays in the processing of loans, benefits and first-time pension claims of lowly government employees who comprise its membership. You can play up emotions and say that while there are millions of pesos involved in the deal and in the lawsuits that have sprouted as a result of the row, the fund members only need a few thousands to pay their children’s tuition, settle hospital bills, buy some medicine, or fix the house.

On the other hand, you can imagine being on the side of the IBM, a company that has built its reputation for decades, doing business in numerous countries all over the world. IBM has been operating in the Philippines for more than 70 years already. Certainly, accusations of supplying “defective” database software to one of its longtime clients, a state agency at that, dents this prized reputation. This, too, should not be taken lightly.

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n a press statement released earlier this month, IBM Philippines quoted Questronix which said that while the system had been operating successfully since May 26 (after IBM had provided the so-called build to address the problem), the overall stability of the system “will continue to be in question until the GSIS takes steps to address the many other issues impacting the system...these include instituting backup and recovery procedures, conducting appropriate performance testing and tuning in accordance with industry practice and having certified personnel manage complex systems on a regular basis.”