Oregon’s Chief Information Officer Says IBM Has Presented a Fix For Glitch-Ridden State Phone System

The state will also hire Gartner, Inc.—a consulting firm—to assess IBM's proposed solution.

Desk phone (PxHere / Creative Commons)
By Nigel Jaquiss

The state's chief information officer today told all state agency directors he thinks IBM has figured out how to fix the phone system that serves 30,000 state employees.

"On March 12, 2018 IBM submitted their final root cause analysis (RCA) and mitigation plan to address the issues in our 'notice of default,'" Pettit wrote in a March 23 memo to all agency heads. "Our office has accepted the RCA and has preliminarily accepted their mitigation plan."

As WW first reported this month, the $45 million system IBM sold the state in 2015, called Project MUSIC, has been plagued by poor sound quality, voicemail issues and outages.

Related: The State of Oregon's New Phone System Doesn't Work—And It's Beginning to Echo Previous Tech Fiascos.

IBM has also previously pledged to make the system work properly, telling a legislative oversight committee in April 2017 that a four-month work stoppage would allow the company to trouble-shoot its installation.

This time, Pettit is bringing in a large consulting firm to validate IBM's claims.

"We have brought in Gartner, Inc. to review the documentation, provide recommendations and observations, and to assist us in developing and executing a comprehensive test of [IBM's] solution," Pettit wrote.

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