IBM is one of the world's respected leaders when it comes to the computer parts industry and related fields. GSIS (Government Service Insurance System) on the other hand is the Philippine government's financial funding company that gives out pension to former government and military employees.
Both institutions are big in their own field and at the moment they are on the top of the news for suing each other. The conflict begun when GSIS accused IBM for the defective software they got from the latter.
Because of the intermittent service from the software is said to have paralyzed the financial firm's operations that costs them around P5 billion in total for "the man-hours lost and the amount of resources spent for data recovery activities when its Integrated Loans, Membership, Acquired Assets and Accounts Management System (ILMAAAMS) crashed."
GSIS is filing for a tort and breach of contract to IBM and its partner, Questronix Corp. for a total of P100 million.
IBM on the other hand counter sued GSIS for libel after GSIS released a series of attacks against the American company. "We cannot stand by and allow our company's reputation to be tarnished by blatantly inaccurate and misleading accusations (made by GSIS)," IBM said in a statement released to the media.
IBM said they do not have a role in the incident because they are an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). This means IBM only supplied/provided the alleged "defective" DB2 software to Questronix, which customized it before customer distribution.
IBM also attacked GSIS for they mishandling of the software. "IBM DB2 has thousands of clients globally, and to date, GSIS is the only organization to report these types of issues," it said.
