Lemon

See what faulty software can do.

A few years ago, the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) procured, at huge cost, software from the IBM to enhance computerization of its records and operations. With millions of members and pensioners as well as tens of thousands of daily transactions, the GSIS needs a state-of-the-art computer backbone. Such a backbone will be utterly useless without reliable software to run it.

The software purchased is called DB2 database management system. Since that software was installed, it began showing kinks.

If this were just some ordinary software on a laptop, the problem will be entirely a private exasperation. But because this is software essential to enabling the entire GSIS to deliver its services, the software problem has become a public issue. Software breakdown has translated into a breakdown in the institution’s ability to deliver its services.

Glitches in the software led to widespread public outcry. The GSIS’ computerization program — including its new access card — has been hyped to no end. The higher the expectation, the greater the disappointment. The GSIS computer system has been condemned and ridiculed no end.

In response, the insurance system has sent out a letter to all its members expressing regret for the faulty software. The erring software has been described as nothing less than a “nightmare.”

No less than IBM Ontario admitted that the frequent breakdown in the GSIS information management system is due to the software procured from this giant multinational company. Even the local affiliates of the IBM — Questronics and SAP — who had helped build the GSIS system admit that the abovementioned software is, well, a lemon. It sucks.

Is it bad enough that IBM sold GSIS an inferior product. What has made things even worse is that the computer giant’s local representatives have not been giving the insurance system the after-sales service they are obliged to provide under the terms of the purchase. Despite promises made, IBM Laboratories based in Toronto has yet to send in a team they said would fix the problem.

Today, the GSIS information system is down. It could not have crashed at a worse possible time such as this one when members file tens of thousands of salary loans to cover tuition fee payments.

The GSIS, through its legal counsel, has sent a strongly-worded demand letter to IBM Corporation president Samuel J. Palmisano who is based in the company’s headquarters in Armonk, New York. The purchaser is demanding that the peddler provide a permanent fix to the software and, as well, shoulder the costs attendant to curing the “inherent defects” in the software product.

The system started crashing in early 2008. It seemed incapable of handling the voluminous data it was designed to deal with. IBM installed an upgrade to the system but to no avail. The system simply continued failing.

In the GSIS’ demand letter, it is clear that the insurance system is intending to take IBM to court if no suitable solution is found soon. Consumers, especially of very costly software products, ought to be entitled to some amount of protection from peddlers. IBM has an obligation, under the contract, to see to it that its software works as advertised.

Over the past few weeks, the GSIS has been dealing with hundreds of suffering parents because of the breakdown in the computer system. The parents are looking to the GSIS for financial assistance with tuition fees on the eve of school opening.

Consuelo Manansala, GSIS EVP for Operations did not conceal her exasperation with IBM. She referred to IBM as “too big a company to care for the anguish it has brought … to GSIS members and pensioners.”

Despite the frequent failure of the computer system, the GSIS assures its members that all the records of the insurance system remain intact. The problem with the software has to do with processing the understandably large amount of information the system must deal with on a daily basis.

That is little consolation to members, to be sure. There is little consolation as well to the overworked employees of the GSIS who now have to process loan applications by hand, the expensive computer system often lying idle.

Imagine if the software used by Megalink and Bancnet turned out to be as faulty as the software deployed by IBM at the GSIS. ATMs would fail and thousands will have to line up before bedraggled bank tellers attempting to service them. The whole economy will wobble.

IBM is being irresponsible in letting this software problem drag on. It brings consternation to the lives of tens of thousands of Filipinos dependent on GSIS payouts.

If this were just an ordinary car that needs some maintenance, we could easily put our local talent to work on the matter. For a large and sophisticated software program that does millions of tasks simultaneously and monitors a mountain of information, it is the IBM’s laboratory that must be put to work.

We can only hope that this giant corporation would attend to its responsibilities as a software supplier at the soonest possible time. It would be such an odd thing that the victim, in this case the GSIS, would have to seek relief from international arbitration courts to make a globally respected corporation like IBM fulfill its contractual obligations.

That will not be good for the software supplier’s reputation. More important, it will not be good for the GSIS and its members that a protracted arbitration happens. It should be a fairly simply thing to cure the kinks in this program so that tens of thousands will not have to line up for their pensions and salary loans.