Not sure I'd agree Jim. I'd term this as Accenture "cutting their losses". So much better that they get out now than run the risk of being exposed to more revenue and earnings risk in the coming years.By way of background, the government - courtesy of Richard Granger - was able to extract terms from the consulting firms that were without precedent. The consultancies basically agreed that their payment would be considerably tied to the success of the NPfIT project - so if anything went wrong with the project they'd have put in all the hours of work and then not get paid.Many in the consulting industry have speculated that the consultancies had to agree to work on these terms as the necessary price for not being excluded from other pieces of government work.The reality of the project has since been that lack of buy-in from NHS managers (who have been given the freedom to opt out of the system) and problems with the software systems being developed have caused the NPfIT project to fall way behind schedule. And so consultancies such as Accenture have had to write-off large sums of money that they will now never receive.It's a bold decision to walk away from the contract altogether - but now Accenture can focus on going out and winning real work rather than spend quarter after quarter reassuring analysts that the NHS revenue projections were indeed still valid.Tony Restell
