<<I was interested to see an article from ZDNet Australia about government IT projects highlighted by ebizq.net. Overall it is a positive story claiming a surprisingly high rate of success but also highlighting some notable failures including an AU$250m(approximately US$180m) customs project that went wrong. Australia is certainly not alone in government IT disasters. From the FBI's $170m virtual case file project which spectacularly failed in 2005 to the £456m (approx $800m) IT disaster suffered by the UK government's child support agency, this is a world-wide phenomenon.
However, we should not launch into a tirade about how our tax dollars, pounds and euros are being wasted. It is certainly true that in the past there has been a litany of disastrous projects failures (and quite probably this will continue to a degree into the future) but this is partly because governments world-wide are investing hugely in upgrading IT. In particular, they are spending on integration projects in order to enhance efficiency and provide better services to citizens and better security. What I have found striking over the last two years or so is the number of government organizations in the US and Europe who have learnt from their mistakes and are now attempting to solve IT problems in an incremental and flexible way and one that is based on SOA and ESBs. There are specific areas that are particularly going in this direction: criminal justice both at a state and national level is investing heavily in SOA and ESBs and in the UK the National Health Service is spending colossal amounts of money on integration and use a leading SOA product from Sun (what was formerly SeeBeyond).>> You can read this at: <http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/soaroads/2006/04/governments_and_soa.php> I fear it will take more than an attempt to adopt SOA for the British Government to rise above its current level of appalling incompetence when it comes to implementing major IT projects. Gervas Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/service-orientated-architecture/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
