Champion, along with Wyatt, dismisses the argument as "a goddamn fiction...the biggest crock I've ever heard of..." and offers a counter charge of sour grapes, suggesting that the conflict of interest is a creation of someone who is jealous of work going to another.

(Following the University's budgetary first commandment, "Each tub shall sitteth on its own bottom," the services of OIT consultants are structured on a fee for service basis, with analysts paid between $10 and $25 and hour according to Guy J. Ciannavei '55, manager of the computing center. OIT's predecessor, the computing center, violated this rule, running up a deficit of over $1 million so in 1972 the center went through a shake-up, with the dismissal of several top officers, the disposal of a large IBM computer, and the laying off of about half the center's staff. With a more carefully constructed rate structure, OIT has run in the black for the last several years, Ciannavei said last week. By July 1, the end of the last fiscal year, OIT had accumulated a surplus of approximately $200,000 which will be rolled over to the '77 year.)

Miscellaneous accounts receivable

Brown-Beasley's criticisms of Gibson, the two vice presidents and computer experts at OIT extend into specific computer systems for and applications at Fiscal Services. One of his most extensive differences with them is over the formation of the new on-line miscellaneous accounts receivable (MAR) system in Fiscal Services.

Brown-Beasley's criticism of the MAR system states the following:

That Gibson ordered the original, manual MAR system files dismantled, over the objections of his staff, months before the first attempt to automate the files had been tested, a violation of the traditional minimum overlap of several months;

That because the first system had failed, for over a year Fiscal Services staff members "repeatedly [had] to inform our clients that we had no way of knowing whether a specific invoice had been paid or whether a specific account was current or not;"

That the initial MAR system included a "patently unworkable" account labeling scheme using the first seven letters of a client's name that, from the outset, prevented successful implementation of a balance-forward monthly statement approach because "it guaranteed that charges to a series of different clients, say, General Dynamics, General Electric, General Motors, and General Telephone, would all, all have their charges appear on one and the same monthly statement..."

That the initial applications software (the programs for the computer system, as opposed to the machine itself, which is called the hardware) could not be salvaged after running over the deadline several months and cost thousands of dollars over the original contract cost;

That the second software system still is not operative four and one-half months after the deadline for its final testing because of careless execution of the contract with the software company and sloppy tailoring of the software program at OIT;

That the hardware for the system, a Datapoint 5500, is inadequate and was chosen in part because in early 1975 Wyatt overturned an OIT-staff recommendation on hardware for a payroll system and ordered use of a Datapoint machine.

Most of these allegations have not been responded to systematically because Gibson, and Kenneth E. Shostack and Edward W. Deehy, staff analysts at OIT, declined to comment on the Brown-Beasley case. However, Wyatt defended the choice of Datapoint hardware for the payroll system in an interview last week, stating that the OIT staff had recommended the Datapoint machine for a "distributed" computer system and a Hewlett-Packard computer for a centralized system. Wyatt chose the Datapoint machine, he said, in part because he believed the distributed system better fit into budgetarily decentralized Harvard. The Datapoint machine also afforded greater privacy, he added, and it could be leased, unlike the purchase-only Hewlett Packard. Wyatt also said that Datapoint "is looking quite good now," and that Harvard is considering taking out a long-term lease on it.

In a previous interview, Brown-Beasley painted a different picture of the OIT staff recommendations, charging that the staff group had proposed the Hewlett Packard machine and had been surprised by Wyatt's choice of the Datapoint hardware. Brown-Beasley argued that the Datapoint machine can be matched or bettered by the Hewlett-Packard and several others considered in the study.

The OIT study, obtained by The Crimson after the Wyatt interview with the approval of Wyatt and Ciannavei, appears to bear out Brown-Beasley's scenario: The report concludes that after a month's study the Hewlett-Packard machines is best for the payroll system, adding, "We have been very impressed with the quality and professionalism of their company's activities." There is no apparent discussion of centralized vs. distributive systems, and security is not one of the eight systems requirements listed.

Ciannavei and Robert A. Carroll, manager of systems and operations in the OIT computing center and head of the group that conducted the study, said last week that Wyatt chose the Datapoint machine after receiving promises of a systems software innovation whose availability was discussed in the report: "Our overall feeling about this system is that with the addition of the 5500 processor, it would be quite adequate to do the presently-defined task in Payroll. However, this system's capability to accommodate more terminals or additional processing functions gracefully would be in question."