Sloppy Software
Having commented about the frightening reliance on Windows by the UK armed forces we now low learn that the Benefits system has gone tits up because of a Windows 'upgrade'.

Pension and benefit payments face disruption after what is being described as the biggest computer crash in government history left as many as 80,000 civil servants staring at blank screens and reverting to writing out giro cheques by hand in the latest blow to a hi-tech Whitehall revolution. [The Guardian]

Lurking in the background is EDS, an American IT company well-known for several unfortunate mishaps in the UK. There is some talk that they might be let loose on the forthcoming ID card, or Entitlement Card, as I believe we'll have to call it. In fact, if you do a Google search for 'EDS cockups', you can get quite an insight into the fastidiousness of this company when it comes to IT.

A COMPUTER PROGRAM that was intended to speed up royalty payments to over 300,000 American Indians lost details of the payment but the US Interior Department hid facts from a judge presiding over an inquiry, it has emerged. And instead of producing accurate figures from the buggy system, the Interior Department used an alternative set of figures cooked up by giant computer firm EDS. [The Enquirer]

And also keeping their heads down are the good people of Microsoft

Some 80,000 computers at the Department for Work and Pensions went down during 'a routine software upgrade' of its Microsoft machines this week. Staff at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were unable to use their PCs this week after a routine software upgrade knocked out 80 percent of the PC in the sprawling department, which numbers some 100,000 employees...Microsoft said that the issue has now been fully resolved, but was unable to provide any information on what caused the crash. [ZDnet UK]

If you use Windows and are getting fed up with all of this try an alternative approach to computing.

  12:26:44 AM