corty
Joined 6 years ago
Joined 6 years ago
On the original contract in 2016, Germany also bid and in all likelihood could have won, since Germany has far more experience with building non-nuclear subs with Diesel or fuel-cell drives. France had to start the designs almost from scratch since they offered a redesign of their nuclear subs. France desperately wanted the contract and probably only won the bidding by intentionally bidding too low and too quick, downplaying their technical challenges. This behavior of France has bitten various European supposed allies and supposed good neighbors a number of times. Either they got outbid by a phony French bid. Or they were customers of such a bidding process, getting endless delays and price overruns.
So I'd be surprised if there were any substantial EU backing for France in this matter.
Some of the press coverage back then and now: https://thediplomat.com/2016/01/has-germany-lost-the-bid-to-... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-submarines-comp...
So microkernels are dead, performance buries them deeper and deeper.
So Berlin is in the comfortable situation of that one no-good family member on social security who will always find someone to pay their bills. Why change anything, why stop spending all that money, if more keeps coming without any effort in any case?
Reasons for this beside the red tape are imho the low number of customers (most slightly specialized medical devices are needed once per patient with $rare_disease, once per lab or once per doctors office), the high need for customization (one-size-fits-all doesn't even work for blood pressure cuffs, let alone prosthetics), localization (broken i18n can kill, most customers are elderly and therefore not as versed in engrish), higher component cost (sterilizable plastics are more expensive, bigger displays for vision-impaired elderly clients are more expensive) and acceptance of foreign/small/unknown manufacturers (won't trust my elderly mother's health to a device from "Corty's Refurbished Asbestos Plates, Health Equipment and Luxuries Ltd., Templestreet, HongKong (CRAPHEALLTH)").
There is also a cartel of each medical professionals, manufacturers, insurance companies/public insurance pools and politicians, complete with revolving doors, kickbacks, fake or real -but always suspiciously convenient- scientific data, and exclusionary legal situations. All cementing the status quo and the wealth and standing of all participants (except the patients' of course).
The French culture is to never deliver bad news before the deadline has arrived. Underlings will never tell their boss that something is impossible, decisions will be made by grande-ecole-bosses without technical expertise and relationships are valued far higher than knowledge and expertise. You'll always get the first impression that all is well and they'll manage before the deadline. If you need a real non-sugar-coated insight as to how the project is going you need to gather your own data. Discreetly.
However, as soon as shit has hit the fan and bosses got involved, they'll bend over backwards to make things work. But you cannot expect meeting the first deadline, ever. Same for the first budget. Subsequent ones depend on the size of the project.