Control Data Corp gambled on taking complete management responsibility for the lottery system it has installed for the state of Florida – and lost: the thing, touted by CDC as promising it $100m in revenues, immediately hit problems when it was cut over in April and CDC has had to forego $1.46m of the initial payment, and will pay $100,000 a month for the first six months of next year – and has tossed five computer systems for Florida schools into the pot to keep the state sweet; the problem arose in getting the point-of-sale terminals to talk to the central computers, and CDC blames the phone system.
