IBM wants to deploy Notes in Afghanistan

As if these people were not already in deep doo doo with what their country has been through for the past decades, there are rumors that IBM is trying to force hapless Afghans into questionable IT choices that could lock them up for a very looooong time.

The picture above shows an IBM VP disguised as a senior afghan trying to explain all the wonderful things their country could do if only they used IBM software. The old fellow sitting to his right seems to think this is all goat shit. And the younger guy with a beard standing behind him has flashbacks from his teenager days when he was managing PS/2 purchase as part of a training course in the U.S. Boy that was painful isn’t it?

Of course there’s a well-thought strategy behind this, you don’t shove a 10-year mainframe contract down their throat the first day. First, you deploy Lotus Notes and insist that increased communication is the path to clean democracy. Of course it doesn’t work exactly the way it should, which gives IBM an excuse to ship more consultants to help “smooth the transition to a mature solution”. And then Afghans wake up one day and their entire IT hardware and software infrastructure depends on a single player.

CGI doesn’t work this way, so maybe Obama should walk the talk and invite us over there. We could talk about values, share our dream. We could outsource their entire infrastructure so that their government can focus on real issues. You want CA software? We got it. You change your mind and want to go Microsoft? No problem, sign the CR here. You prefer IBM software? There you go. CGI would hire all their government IT workers, ship them to Troy, Michigan and create a super-center delivering tailored IT solution to Afghanistan.

Having 5000 Afghans living in Troy might change the local scenery a bit, but everyone would win.