Things get interesting in Oracle vs. Montclair State

Chris Kanaracus at IDG is still doggedly running down enterprise app failures (and the rest of us are better for it!). He's covered the MSU run in with Oracle in the past. Basically a $16M ERP deal from 2009 goes over budget... by about $20M.

MSU claims fraud and a dodgy demo; Oracle claims that it's completely covered by contractual legalese and that the case should be dismissed. Specifically:

• Oracle claimed that PSFT could address 95% of the business requirements but "Attachment C-1 of the Fixed Price Exhibit" clearly lays out what's in scope or not. The "Undefined" requirements appear to be particularly contentious.
• MSU in unhappy about the amount of internal effort it has had to apply... but Oracle's contract "put the onus on MSU, not Oracle" to ensure the scope could be met.

The bottom line, as always, is: read the contract and don't trust the sales guy.

Whaley Foodservice Repairs takes on Epicor

Epicor is going to court. Whaley Foodservice Repairs of South Carolina is dissatisfied both with Epicor's product and delivery. It wanted a system up and running in its main office and in 12 branch locations... but it never worked. Planned implementation costs of $190,000 now exceed $1 million.

Whaley alleges fraud, breach of contract, unfair trade, and negligent representation. The source of the problem seems to be about what was presented in the demo. Integration and the use of third party software from Evron Computer Systems seemed to be part of the challenge.

Chris Kanaracus on Computerworld provides some reporting.