Dataflex is not open source and there is nothing wrong with open source for that matter, but Dataflex is not something for very large scale database applications.

It’s prone to data corruption, more desktop application-like oriented. It’s meant for medium to small operations so they can build their applications quickly inhouse.

As far as I know, the Dataflex database has severe limitations albeit you can connect it via ODBC to other databases but that defeats the purpose because ODBC is slower than a direct connection like most other enterprise tools available.

If it is true that Sammut is using Dataflex then that really takes the biscuit because: a. there are few who use it so limits the competion field, b. it could not be around tomorrow as it’s not one of the big heavily capitalised software companies that would be considered more reliable, especially for something critical like a hospital, even if they have been around for quite a long time, c. it does not interface well with other mainstream enterprise products.

In other words, this is plain nuts.

The system is written on a database called Dataflex which is opensource and full of bugs and backdoor entry points. It is easily hackable.

That’s what we are getting. GOD HELP US.

Sammut is desperately trying to make the system go live today. He is trying to prove it works. It won’t. Staff at Mater Dei Hospital are already canning it as unworkable.

This is about Dalli getting his own back after his INSO and AME-fronted bid failed in 2004 due to corrupt practices. No one can pin him to it, of course, but I’m sure if a certain Gilbert talks…

And why is Claudio Grech so silent on the whole issue? Perhaps the PN should ask pertinent questions of its shadow health minister.

Swieqi was his home address. So this is a company without a place of doing business. He runs it from home.

I would expect that MITA has its eco system for such a major project. In other words this means like what sort of planes one buys for an airline depends on the availability of spares and the number of planes one has from the same supplier.

Medium to long term servicing could prove to be a financial disaster, i.e. 2.5 million would be the least one has to worry about at this point as well as the possibility that the supplier of that technology goes bankrupt or decides to go off on a tanget and stops being compatible with other systems.

And pray while the superman is cosing is this system being stress tested for the huge usage which I’m sure it will experience?

Who is doing that work then?

Not to mention who is testing what he’s building before staff see it? Is any technical testing going to be done before release?

And all this will be released next week according to Dalli.

He tripped over some ‘crieki, go crieki, go crieki’.

I remember meeting him many years ago when Dalli was Finance Minister and Mark Sammut had been appointed a director on the Malta Stock Exchange board. Did i hear someone say “mhux x’taf imma lil min taf”?

Min ghandu d-dejn tal-flus u min ghandu d-dejn ghal xi obligazzjoni jew xi pjacir.

Jien imbellah kif dan John Dalli kien se jigi mressaq il-Qorti u f’daqqa wahda kif inbidel il-Kummissarju tal-Pulizija ma’ gara xejn, anzi sar bniedem prominenti tal-Gvern ta’ Joseph Muscat.

After writing a smokesreen report and unleashing it on a mostly naïve media for ‘discussion’ or ‘djalogu’ as he called it, he simultaneously set to work on his real target, the €25 million IT contract – while all attention was on the report.

Other spoils will follow and the question we should be asking is, who will benefit from the kickbacks besides the Philantropist?