Outsourcing big is not always beautiful. Indeed, sometimes outsourcing big can be a blunder. For example, on Friday, Information Age reported a tally of the UK government’s project management track record, and found that IT projects count among its worst failures. Why? “Government needs to stop thinking that when it comes to procuring IT systems, big is always beautiful,” says shadow chancellor George Osborne. “We need to move in the direction of what are known as ‘open standards’ – in effect, creating a common language for government IT,” he said, which would mean “big projects can be split into smaller elements, which can be delivered by different suppliers and then bolted together”. Even in Texas, big …

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