

GOP asked tech founder, ex-fugitive McAfee to diagnose Obamacare - tptacek
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101128689

======
tptacek
_McAfee was scornful of CGI Federal, the American subsidiary of CGI Group, a
Canadian company that received a contract initially worth nearly $100 million
to act as the primary contractor in building HealthCare.gov._

 _" It sounds a little bit absurd," McAfee said. "The Canadians are not well
known for being high technologists compared to the Americans."_

Couldn't have said it dumber myself.

~~~
hga
Well, they aren't, especially compared to Americans as he points out. In fact,
can we name any big ones that don't make hardware? I can't think of any off
the top of my head, especially web site companies, but feel free to jog my
memory.

His comment is also highly qualified, " _a little bit absurd_ ". And people
not of the right are e.g. pointing out CGI proper recently getting fired by a
province? for botching a contract.

And while I've been railing about the management problems above them, we've
been hearing about a _lot_ of issues at their level, the most recent here from
one of our members:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6583778](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6583778)

This is _not_ my field of expertise (I'm a back end guy and last worked at
this level in 1997), but ... I don't think I've heard anything good, and I've
heard a lot of things that seem to be inexcusable. Possibly process issues,
going into production without testing, but that should be limited to CGI
Federal, not the misbegotten integrator, HHS's CMMS. Well, except for the
"we're not going to test this until the week before launch" minor detail....

Disclaimer: I worked for a short while for a part of AMS that didn't get
bought by CGI. But they did seem to be above average in competence as Beltway
Bandits go.

~~~
tptacek
You realize that the "they" in my quote refers to _Canadians in general_ ,
right?

~~~
hga
If they're technical they aren't expressing it in Canada, are they? 1/10 the
population, very roughly 1/10 the GDP, but not even a fraction of 1/10 the
visible (computer) high tech, right?

Given how qualified, that is "weak", his statement was, the point I'm making
is I believe apropos. It's a jab at our Tory neighbors to north, not some
profound judgement of CGI's abilities.

And in the political arena certainly you must be expecting such jabs?

