Those who say that the city's payroll needs are complex are entirely correct. A city government that size will inevitably have a mind-boggling number of variations in the business rules that the software must model.
Yet $600 million? I've built accounting software, and though it wasn't as complex as what NYC needs, I'm 90% sure $600 million is astronomically higher than what a reasonable price would be.
What about the original price of $63 million? That still seems awfully high to me, but I'm not sure. Does anyone have an opinion on that?
I've never built a time keeping system, but this is how I put that number in perspective. For $63 million I can hire everyone who's ever been a Django core developer (people I've worked with, and who are excellent) for 5 years, at 500k a year... and there'd be money left over.
Building a time-keeping system for large city like NYC is many,many times more work than building web-framework like Django. It's not a technically complicated problem, but it has a different kind of complexity. That complexity comes complex business requirements, which have to be analyzed and implemented piece-by-piece.
My university spent $10 million updating their student information system. It's not hard to hit eight figures when you're paying an army of extremely unproductive consultants $500-$1000/hour.
$600 million is extortionate, of course - hence the demand for reparation. That's why bloated consulting companies like this are able to demand such high prices. Their size provides a target for the inevitable lawsuit if things go south.
Yet $600 million? I've built accounting software, and though it wasn't as complex as what NYC needs, I'm 90% sure $600 million is astronomically higher than what a reasonable price would be.
What about the original price of $63 million? That still seems awfully high to me, but I'm not sure. Does anyone have an opinion on that?