Lets face it, everyone in the industry knows that EDS are crap. I know a few people who have worked for them and the general attitude in the company seems to be, lets chuck enough indians at a problem and eventually it will be fixed.

It will be interesting to see how bad the service gets as they ship out more people to India and how many accounts they lose. It amazes me that any IT Director can outsource to EDS or, to be fair, any of the large outsourcers and expect any semblance of service.

We have all seen it with companies that provide engineers into corporates hiring contractors and pushing them straight into a company and there is no come back.

Anyone who uses EDS gets what they deserve. Surly just the slightest bit of due dilligence would show exactly what chance of success such a big project would have, then factor in the track record of EDS, and you might as well just write the money off and do with out.

Working in local government I've seen the abortive crap EDS dump on its clients up close and personal. I can't believe they *still* get huge government contracts, take the money, then turn around and say "oh sorry we can't do it for that price anymore - we need to renegotiate the contract".

Glad to see BSkyB not taking that kind of rubbish. If only the government and local authorities here in Blighty had the same stones...

It'd also be nice to see the government start doing large IT contracts the correct way - contract out the project management and then have them chop it up and contract out the little sub projects, rather than rely on one huge corporation like EDS who will just bleed you dry and laugh knowing there is no competition.

Ok, I'm calm now...

Couldn't agree more.

I am quite frankly amazed at how a company can survive with its catalogue of failures - oh wait, Labour is still in power too....

The software supplied by EDS (Chordiant) is one of the worst pieces of software I've had the pleasure of using - god forbid you have a problem with your broadband thats not handled by the software logic, some Sky Broadband customers have been unable to use their broadband for 3-4 months because of unhandled exceptions which take months to resolve for individual accounts...

The EDS people I used to know used to know what they were doing. But that was a long time ago, back when EDS were "just" GM's systems house, not an all-singing all-dancing all-failing outsourcing outfit.

It is good to see a major company taking an outsource provider to court, this happens far to little. I have knowledge of a fair few companies who have had services provided by the likes of EDS/C(r)AP Gemini etc and allowed them to get away with murder, rather than go to court, because you are all of a sudden in a position where your CIO/CEO are trying to explain to the shareholders why they employed the services of a company who are not able to carry out their contract. Queue resignations...

Sue em out of business if possible.

Isn't it about time the outsourcing fad died down, and idiot managers get told that having internal teams is a billion times better?

Someone make it happen already, we're getting outsourced soon.

...all sorts of nasty, provable and verifiable tales of EDS cockups in the welfare distribution system here in California, the one made mostly from political corruption, special interest compromises, and input from the Mexican government, but I like getting paid.

The scariest part is, even with all the bitching from Democrats about corruption and American capitalism, is how this Republican owned mega corporation gets all the contracts in Democratically controlled states and programs. The hands wash each other everywhere.

And like Ross Perot, I know they're watching...probably too late already :P

"...contract out the project management and then have them chop it up and contract out the little sub projects,..." ... that's exactly what does happen within EDS, and has been so for the last couple of years. The main problem is businesses not fully understanding their own business and expecting us to redo loads of work for free! If they don't understand themselves, what chance do we stand?

We also have ISO9001 and all departments have at least CMMI Level 3, and have also adopted ITIL best practices and..... OMG, I'm defending EDS... my life is over!!!!!!

Since I work for EDS, I think I'll be an anonymous coward.... =)

Nice to see Everything Done Slowly are alive and suffering.

This is a first, I agree with Murdock .... Oh the shame.

EDS have been laughing all the way to the bank for ages. In central government they can be thrown off a project for being s*** and then can reapply to fix their screw up through a tendering process. There is no need for them every to deliver anything that works!

I'm a former EDS employee. I left years ago because they are not the same company they used to be. On one hand, this is another example of the sorry company they've beocme. On the other hand, I am vested in their retirement plan and want them to do well so I can (hopefully) collect on that far off day when I retire...

years ago nearly went for a job interview , then I heard about them disliking ponytail hair styles on men and beards (men only also I think?). And women in jeans.

In the early 80's, I had a spell living in the Belly of the Beast (Dallas) and had a mate who worked for EDS. I forget the exact details now, but the truly anal rules and regs on drugs, drink, hair, clothes, attitude he had to abide by to keep the job were more like those you'd expect from some communist backwater than the so-called 'land of the free'.

The foyer on their campus had a sculpture of a massive and predatory looking american eagle on a branch, carved from a single piece of wood and of the kind that makes Europeans wince in embarassment on someone elses behalf. I remember the friend told me the boss was a foaming nutcase, but it was only years later I found out quite how much when he ran for president.

A relative got a job with them last year, and couldn't understand why I visibly winced when told, till I pointed him to a few less than complimentary articles.

Only EDS could make Murdoch look at least cosmetically heroic.

Several beards and a ponytail visible from where I'm sitting. Don't believe everything that you hear :)

EDS get all the government business because the government sold out the wonderful and dedicated civil servants to EDS and now they're trapped with little chance of progression as they need people to continue to develop and fix the massive systems inherited. How do you think JSA or IS or DLA etc keep running, it's not magic gnomes you know!

We do a damn fine job and get less reward for it than we would have if we'd not been sold out/sourced.

So, next time you get a letter from a benefit system or have to make a claim, thank the people that suffer under their rule.

I blame the government. Maybe you should re-evaluate your view?

trust me there are a LOT worse out there!

I used to work for EDS and got tupe'd across to another supplier along with a lot of other people, we all thought 'it can't be worse than EDS' - oh how wrong we were...to put it another way we used to work for Texans, now we work for cowboys!

says that EDS is widely held - among the poor sods who work there - to stand for "Every Day's Shit"

One minute I'm a happy Civil Servant - the next I've been TUPE'd to the biggest bunch of incompetent shysters I've ever had the misfortune to work for. They're screwing the Tax Payer via the MoD's pathetic DII(F) disaster for every brass farthing they can grab. Worse still, the MoD's own IT teams could have done the job for a fraction of the price before we were TUPE'd into expectant redundancy. Still, I expect there'll be a few nice non-executive directorships for NuLabor ex-MPs once the dust settles.

It's all gone pear-shaped for EDS. But it's nice to see someone finally taking an "outsourcer" to court for manifestly failing to deliver and, in fact, merely syphoning vast quantities or money out of a company in exchange for a compromised system produced by people who could have just-as-easilly been hired for a fraction of the cost directly by the customer.

I really don't understand how this stuff continues. Maybe it's because CEO/CIOs go on big, expensive lunches with the sales team from the outsourcer??

Thought everyone would like to see the email sent by a colleague who left EDS on Thursday 18-10-07

______________________________________________

From: XXXXXX, XXXXXXX

Sent: 18 October 2007 14:48

To: CC UK AMRO; CC UK AOM Implementation; CC UK GME Ops; CC UK KAT; CC UK Liverpool Victoria; CC UK Support Services; UK CC 24x7 Helpdesk; UK CCNE AON; UK CCNE CM Aon; UK CCNE Leveraged; UK CCNE LT Orders; UK CCNE PM Aon; UK CID Rolls Royce; UK NE CC DWP Leadership; UK RMC ABN; UK RMC BSC; UK RMC CoRE; UK RMC Ops Managers; UK RMC Rolls Royce; UK RMC Service Desk Mgrs; UK RMC Technology; UK RMC Training;

Subject: Goodbye To You All

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It’s finally here, my last day with EDS and in the tradition of leaving EDS I’ve put together a small leaving & thank you mail.

I’ve been with EDS for nearly 5 years now where I started work on the Aon team. I was with Aon for approximately 18 months and enjoyed my time on the desk. I was then offered a position within the 24x7 team which I immediately accepted and have been here since. I’ve gained valuable knowledge & experience working for 24x7 and have enjoyed most of my time on the desk.

But,,,,, until recently things have drastically changed for the worse on 24x7. As most companies do these days, when everything is running smooth and the team / department doesn’t need a change, along come the new management “who are supposed to know what they’re doing” with planned changes that will not only change the way we work but change peoples lives in and out of work!!!

Other than the above, there is the issue of not receiving a pay rise for 23 months. I mean, how do I not deserve a pay rise for meeting all of my targets for the last 2 years? For too long now have EDS given out pay rises to employees who don’t deserve one and the ones who do deserve them are left waiting and given excuse after excuse by management. Finally this leads to my biggest issue with EDS. Every 2 weeks, sometimes every week we receive a mail notifying us of any contracts EDS have won. These contracts are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and what are we offered? A bonus? No, we’re offered a dress down day on a Friday. I personally think it’s an insult. If a company as big as EDS can only offer a dress down day to their employees then where does all the money go? I suppose we’ll never find out.

I’m not going to dwell on what has happened on 24x7 but before I leave I would like to say one thing to the managers who were involved in the unnecessary shift change, “We told you it wouldn’t work, and we were right. And in future maybe you will actually listen to your staff and be a little more professional before implementing such a change, oh and actually be here when the change goes ahead.” I hold no grudges to what has happened, I just want everyone to know my reasons for leaving EDS.

I’ve probably made it sound all bad but honestly it’s not. I’ve worked with some great people and have made some excellent friends, most who I hope to stay in touch with. I would like to thank everyone I’ve worked with over the last 5 years especially my close colleagues on the 24x7 team, without you all I’d have left a long time ago!

Lastly, thank you all for the leaving card and gifts, they are much appreciated. I’ll definitely be spending hours on the practice putting green you have bought me as the practice is very much needed.

Once again, thank you all for your support during my time with EDS. I have included my home email address below for those of you who would like to keep in touch.

XXXXXX.XXXXXXX@TALKTALK.NET

Yes, there have been some major failings in the company, as there are with others. But this is another example of failure in the UK due to the customer wanting to pay peanuts for an all dancing, all singing solution.....not having a clue about what it is exactly they are after, changing the scope dramatically and on the fly then shifiting the blame to the outsourcer, refusing to compensate the outsourcer, then ditching them to shift blame.

I can picture it now, sales represent the company has the resources and skills to develop the service as the customer describes it, customer says great, but we're not exactly sure what we want. Ok, company says it's quite hard to provide fixed pricing for that...small changes in scope we can absorb, but if you're really not quite sure, maybe we should bo T&M until you know..... It appears even BSkyB admited this by accepting T&M until the scope was nailed down...three years later, they give up and take on the service themselves?

Saying the outsourcer is to blame here and knowingly deceived the customer is bound to fail.

And, a £709M claim against a TCV of £48M???? Come on......14 times the TCV....watch out for a counter claim from EDS.