The 2010 BSkyB v. HP case, a high-profile lawsuit over a failed customer system implementation, reached a certain level of infamy in the IT/outsourcing space when it first became public, for among other reasons because it was disclosed that an HP sales rep was found to have deliberately lied in 2000 about timelines needed to complete the project, in order to win the work. In the aftermath of the settlement, the UK head of HP Enterprise Services insisted BSkyB had not forced HP to change its practices “one jot”, and noted instead that any changes HP had made reflected the growing maturity of the market since the early 2000’s, when the outsourcing business was in a “very different place”: since then, HP, and other outsourcers, had since learned to “bring together the sales view and the delivery reality “.
Fast forward to 2007, Orange County engages Tata America International Corporation to develop custom software to handle the operations of most of the County’s property tax functions. But by 2013, Orange County OC has let the contract expire and has sued for $10 mil, for claims which include promissory fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, and negligent misrepresentation - in effect, claiming that Tata deliberately misrepresented - during the sales cycle and an ongoing basis throughout the engagement - their ability to perform the services and to do in the agreed project timelines. This seminar reviews the extent to which this case is in effect BSkyB redux, and suggests lessons learned from what appears to be a continuing disconnect between the sales side and operations side of providers.