Oregon Withholding $25.6M From Oracle Over Health Website Woes

itwbennett writes "Oregon is holding back $25.6 million in payments from Oracle (out of some $69.5 million Oracle claims it is owed) over work the vendor did on the state's troubled health care exchange website. The site was supposed to go live on Oct. 1 but its launch has been marred by a slew of bugs and it is not yet fully functional. This week, Cover Oregon said it had reached an agreement with Oracle laying out 'an orderly transition of technology development services, and protects current and future Cover Oregon enrollees,' according to a statement. Oregon officials reached the deal with Oracle after the company reportedly threatened to pull all of its workers off the project and essentially walk away."

Good if they succeed.

[Z00L00K]

Too many companies deliver sub-standard software without any risk at all, especially in big projects.

Mistakes do happen, but underbidding is too common.

Re:Good if they succeed.

[Bartles]

Too many governments deliver sub-standard public services without any risk or recourse, especially in big projects. It's not the contractors fault, it's the contract manager's fault.

Re:Good if they succeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Too many public services that were privatized under the guise of saving money now cost the public more money than when they were publicly run. Turns out 'privatization' is a euphemism for 'funnel money in to my campaign contributor's pockets'

Re:Good if they succeed.

[tomhath]

A lot depends on what the developers are given to work with. It sounds like Oracle salesmen talked Oregon into buying a hodge podge of stuff that supposedly bolted onto Siebel. When that kind of technical decision is made based on what the salesman gets a commission on it usually doesn't turn out well.

Re:Good if they succeed.

[Charliemopps]

Clearly you've never worked with Oracle. The states biggest mistake was hiring them.

Re:Good if they succeed.

[TENTH SHOW JAM]

No. It sounds to me like there were competent contract managers who simply asked for things to work out of the box like the sales droids said they would. When they failed that test, then they applied the stick to the carrot.

Oracle (Bless their little hearts) got a bit peeved that they would now have to earn their money rather than just grab the money and run. Things came to a head. Some negotiation happened and a way forward was worked out. Oracle will get paid when they deliver a product that meets a defined level of quality. In exchange, Oregon will lower the level of quality appropriately.

This sort of thing happens all the time in government contracts. I get to deal with these things reasonably regularly. When money is tight, even governments expect value for money. The IT firms sometimes have some adjustment to do.