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back to article Australia's IBM-assisted Census fail burned AU$30 MEEELLION

Australia's AU$700k-per-year chief statistician has told a Senate estimates committee that the August 2016 Census crash lopped $30 million off the hoped-for $100 million savings to be had from taking the survey online. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) spent $10 million to have IBM conduct the online Census, but the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't look at Notes/Domino,

    instead consider the professionalism of IBM people who... What ?! 30 millions ? Good Lord!

    2 0 Reply
  2. Phil Kingston

    but what were these "additional costs" that mean they've burned through another $20million?

    0 0 Reply
    1. Diogenes
      Reply Icon

      1. Lots of requests for paper forms (postage * 2)

      2. Paying more money to those women to chase up why the census hasn't been completed

      1 0 Reply
  3. Diogenes

    “The ABS made a number of poor judgements in preparation for the 2016 census that led to the poor experience of many households.

    “We made a difficult decision to take the system offline on 9 August to ensure the security of the Census data”, he said, but “the system should have been robust to DDoS events”.

    No we badly underestimated peak demand which were just before "smoko", lunch, and "the kids are off to be bed, I have had dinner and I will now do the census" times.

    FTFY

    4 0 Reply
  4. FozzyBear
    Mushroom

    So now IBM have base information on the Australian people including their names. Charming.

    Tell me they wont use that information for their own purposes!!

    0 0 Reply
    1. Pompous Git Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Tell me they wont use that information for their own purposes!!

      I don't think they are likely to sell us many desktop PCs using that info ;-)

      2 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        No PCs

        Probably not, IBM doesn't sell PCs anymore (remember Lenovo)

        0 0 Reply
  5. Chris Holford

    Hollerith must be turning in his grave!

    see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card#History

    1 0 Reply
    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
      Reply Icon

      Probably.

      Watson, on the other hand ...

      0 0 Reply
    2. Pompous Git Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Hollerith must be turning in his grave!

      Nah! He's just punch-drunk ;-)

      0 0 Reply
  6. Colin Tree

    effective government

    something the LNP is always trying to avoid is "better measurements of the effectiveness of government programs"

    0 0 Reply
    1. Pompous Git Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: effective government

      And the ALP doesn't? Pull the other one...

      0 0 Reply

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