SimHouston, a project that allows city residents without computers to use thin-client PCs at selected city libraries to create, edit and store a variety of office-type documents that are accessed via the Web, has won the hearts of more than 60,000 city residents who have tested the applications.
The project has generated lots of heat over the last few months, with accusations that the city's former CIO, Denny Piper, rigged the bidding process of the project so that only one company, Internet Access Technologies (IAT), could win the bid. In addition, several members of the City Council have told local newspapers that they doubt the cost savings estimates that Piper presented (savings which would come from replacing desktop PCs in city agencies with thin client machines that can access the SimHouston suite on the Internet).
"In light of the continuing District Attorney's review of the allegations of violation of state bid laws by the city's former chief information officer, the city has deferred payment to Internet Access Technologies, Inc. for Phase 1 work -- deployment to the 500-plus public access computers in the Houston Public Libraries -- in the short term," Mayor Brown said in a statement.
According to the statement, acceptance testing for phase 1 of the SimHouston roll out started in June and was finished at the end of September -- the results of the tests have been documented and signed by five individuals. The test results were positive on the five modules that were deployed in this phase, the mayor's statement said.
The mayor's statement said that until either the District Attorney's or the Office of Inspector General's investigations indicate a reason to interrupt its implementation, SimHouston should continue to move forward.
"The actual number of people who used the SimHouston product is 63,200 plus, and those people have 250,000 documents stored on the system," said Richard Lewis, CIO of Houston, noting that the alleged bidding irregularities could void the contract between the city and IAT.
"On the other hand, the vendor has performed on their phase 1 obligations, so the city has benefited," he said. "Whether the city has benefited to the amount that the first payment the contract calls for may be a matter that would have to be decided by a court. At this point, we're hoping that, in the short term, these allegations can be resolved and it can be business as usual."
Phase II will include the deployment of the SimHouston suite of applications to city agencies, Lewis said.
"We're doing deployment planning, and the product ahs been installed on a number of computers in the IT department," he said.
The future of SimHouston is up in the air. Houston's City Council has called a special meeting next week to "discuss and/or take action relating to the postponement or cancellation of the Agreement for Software Licensing and Support between the city of Houston and Internet Access Technologies," according to a public notice from Council Member Bruce Tatro.
"The mayor gave me the assignment of meeting with as many members of the City Council as I can between now and Tuesday," Lewis said. "We're going to tell them that we're not going to make payment to the vendor, in the short term; that the acceptance testing for phase I has been done and that it is positive; that 63,200 citizens in our community have used the system to store 250,000 documents on it; and that we think it's only prudent to move forward on it in light of that success."
