I have also dealt with IBM in the past with similar experience. They demand a very large price tag for anything. There are some projects where their rate is unavoidable; usually when they are the only company that can take on a particular project of scale. However, similar to your experience, I believe in many cases they are simply a bad option to use. In the software industry, I’ve heard many anecdotal cases when dealing with large companies like IBM and Oracle.
I think your experience may be a part of the reason for some of our differences in opinion. I worked for 20 years as a software developer before joining the Nervos Foundation. I worked primarily with startup companies during this time, but I also worked in larger corporations and spent several years working with Fortune 500 companies.
My interaction with Fortune 500 companies comes from a different perspective. My team was hired to come in and rescue projects where the development team was failing. Usually, the projects were over budget and way behind schedule.
In about half of the cases, the developers themselves were underqualified and unable to handle the complexity of the project. The other half of the cases was interesting because developer incompetence wasn’t the problem at all. Instead, the problem was due to poor management or bureaucracy.
Having too much process can impede progress to a standstill. We must continuously fight to ensure our processes remain unburdensome. As the ecosystem progresses and gets larger, additional practices will inevitably find their place. However, the ecosystem is still small today. Let’s not give up the luxury of simplicity and efficiency so easily.