Re: EDS defends its role in Ontario Justice IT debacle (June 1)
I was given a copy of this article and couldn’t let it go by without comment. The article states that a similar integrated
justice project has failed in British Columbia. I am proud to say that B.C. has the most successful integrated justice information program in Canada. JUSTIN, our Criminal justice information system links records from Police, Criminal Justice, Courts, and the Judiciary into one database. JUSTIN has won two awards in 2002, a Distinction award at Government Technology Week in Ottawa, and a B.C. Public Sector Technology Transformation Award. Starting in 1998, Justin was developed incrementally over several years, module by module, always with the big picture in mind. It was developed and implemented for a small fraction of the Ontario investment.
Using a similar incremental approach, in 2004 we have developed and implemented an integrated Civil justice system called CEIS (Civil Electronic Information System), and Courts Service On-line to allow public inquiry of civil information. We are now in the final process of developing an Electronic Filing module to allow electronic initiation of civil proceedings.
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify the state of integrated justice in B.C.
Frank D’Argis
Executive Director
Information Technology Services Division
Ministry of Attorney General
Province of British Columbia
Re: EDS defends its role in Ontario Justice IT debacle (June 1)
Ms. Lysecki’s article is commendable for providing excellent granularity as an extension to the initial Globe and Mail story. Myriad questions spring to mind:
1. I am gratified (I think) that seven of nine project were successful, as EDS claims. I would ask if they were under similar terms, i.e. future-based savings or straight pay/deliver deals, and enquire as to the relative cost of each of the seven compared to the two failures: larger, same, smaller?
2. Is the so-called CIO cluster dreaming up new ways and means to shrink budgets or cap them by pushing risk and cost out to external parties? If so, why was the government side of the deal not airtight to mitigate downstream risk?
3. Does the Provincial Auditor General have an opinion on these deals from the budgetary and risk perspective? Surely arrangements such as this fly in the face of responsible government spending! I do not recall this project being on the list of suspect government initiatives.
John Bolden
Founder & Principal Consultant
IFVG Consulting Group
Re: May the Force be upgraded (May 20)
I agree, you most certainly could have saved Anakin Skywalker from the Dark Side!
It is such a joy to read your editorials. Without them the IT Business newsletter wouldn’t be the same. I am just an insignificant retired one-man operation, but enjoy your daily e-mail very much!!
Hopefully I am not the only who appreciates you and pays you a compliment.
Dieter Reimers
Editor’s Note: The Force is strong with Shane Schick, but he is not, in fact, a Jedi master.
Re: The write to be heard (May 18)
Good man, Shane. From day one I felt that you would help small businesses. The blog idea is a good one. No, a great one! However, like yourself I personally prefer the formal structure of communication. Nevertheless, this opportunity is significant and if used properly could be very helpful to small companies and startups. Thank you for trying to help out the little guys.
Anthony R. Sukdeo
TECHNOCORP
Re: Sun, Microsoft cozy up on Web services standards (May 13)
Reading between the lines this could be another “standard” that is so broad that interoperability doesn’t actually happen because there are no commonly agreed “profiles” in actual products. (Please see anything from the PKI standards on which Web services appear to rely, all the way back to the V.24 D plug standard.)
One interesting point about Web “standards” is that it is not clear if they actually protect the identity of the user (privacy) or if they actually work by compulsory disclosure of the identity of the user. Identity theft is one of the most serious problems being faced by Internet users today and it would be a significant error if new standards failed to take all possible steps to ensure that identities cannot be readily picked up just by observing information transferring around the Internet.
Steve Mathews
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