Richard Steel v The Inquirer -- or catfight!

[gdt]

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.