Yet large government IT projects have a habit of going spectacularly wrong.The government thinks it has learned the lessons of past IT disasters (see article).
We mock governments for their IT disasters, to which King and Crewe devote a chapter, but similar fiascos have bankrupted private companies.
One of the main prongs of the government's efforts to reduce the toll of public sector IT disasters is to build up what it calls a government IT profession.
Cloud computing may be the hottest thing in corporate computing right now, but two IT disasters - at Amazon and Sony - beg the question: Is cloud computing ready for primetime business?
(As Rusty Foster pointed out at the New Yorker, IT disasters aren't late-breaking events. The people working on the project know how its going).
Because governments of all parties have committed so many blunders over so many years – think of the poll tax, the Child Support Agency and countless IT disasters – it points to more deep-seated flaws in the British governmental system as a whole.
