A lesson in the wisdom of arguing with the media.
London council unimpressed with Microsoft MOU
Mark Ballard 2008-04-18
Newham London Borough Council has scrapped the controversial 10-year
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) it signed with Microsoft in 2004 and
drawn up a new agreement with a new set of deliverables.
It appears Microsoft's flagship government contract failed to
demonstrate its value, four years after it was signed.
Should I trust the press again?
Richard Steel 2008-04-22 [sic]
...A little later, 'though, I was contacted by another journalist
asking about the story that appeared in The Inquirer (a
journal I hadn't heard of) which completely misrepresents my comments.
Far from saying that we had "scrapped" our MOU (Memorandum of
Understanding) with Microsoft, what I actually said was that we
achieved all of its objectives except one — benchmarking against
other Microsoft accounts, industry wide — which was due to be
completed within the next 3 weeks or so. We had therefore agreed
new actions with Microsoft in a progress review last year.
["This blog appears on the Newham Counil intranet as part of CIO
Richard Steel's communications strategy with his team. It is repeated
on Computerworld UK a week later." Which can't be true, since the
response would have appeared on the intranet before the original.]
War of words breaks out over Microsoft MOU
Mark Ballard 2008-04-23
The salutary lesson to draw from our dealings, Richard, is not
whether you can trust the press. It is rather a lesson in managing
expectations, a process every CIO should know well.
The expectations you invested in your 2004 deal with Microsoft,
as enshrined in the memorandum of understanding, were also
unrealistic.
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