Oracle Delivers Little in Philadelphia's Project Ocean

Software Giant's $18 Million Scandal

This is the problem with multinational market presence: Err in Philadelphia and you're news in New Zealand. Of course, $18 million bungles involving 500,000 consumers make headlines anywhere, especially when the key player is software mammoth Oracle.

Last week came the news that the city of Philadelphia has halted work on the three-year multimillion-dollar "Project Ocean," a CRM software project in which Oracle was contracted to implement "the most complex and biggest IT system" in the Philadelphia government. When contracted in 2003, Oracle promised to replace the city's outdated water department billing, collections and operations processes with updated Oracle software within twelve months for a total of $7 million.

At that time, then-Philadelphia Water Commissioner Kumar Kishinchand opposed Project Ocean on a number of grounds. Philadelphia CIO Dianah Neff bypassed Kishinchand's objections regarding Project Ocean and signed a contract with Oracle extremely favorable to the company. In 2004, Kishinchand resigned from the commission after a twelve year stint, citing the difficulties with Project Ocean among the reasons.

Kishinchand has become a quotable figure since the story broke, detailing problems with Project Ocean in sources from Holland to Oceania. As Kirshinchand sees it, problems were manifest from the go. Firstly, in charge of the implementation was the Philadelphia financial department and not the water utility, the actual users of the software. Reportedly, the Mayor's Office of Information Services was making a push to take over the water billing system, a producer of $300 million in annual revenue. In Kirchinchand's opinion, Oracle was absolutely unsuitable to create Project Ocean, as the firm had never taken one a municipal water billing system, much less one of Philadelphia's size.