I see GovDelivery mentioned in the news over an Obama email problem.  It reminds me of when my government employer lost big on GovDelivery about two years ago.  We used it for a month, convinced ourselves it didn’t perform nearly as well as promised, and then tried to cancel it for a partial refund of the $57,000 that was paid.  Didn’t get a refund (no surprise).

With this weekend’s news, I was wondering if GovDelivery has improved since we used it.  Looking at a DHS [<a href="https://service.govdelivery.com/service/login_new.html?function=login&code=USDHS&button=Go&caller=multi_subscribe.html&login=example%40example.org&partner_id=5124&origin=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dhs.gov%2F">sign up page</a>], I see that GD finally includes some logic to construct email addresses for wireless phones.  Unfortunately, it looks like they did a lazy job of implementing it.  We had emailed them a short, localized list of wireless carriers (AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, Alltel) and some Javascript as an example for how one might do it, and they published it verbatim without even expanding the list to include carriers like Virgin, Boost, and MetroPCS.  It doesn’t look like they’ve gotten their act together.

It’s surprising that GovDelivery could find its way into the White house.  The White House email adminstrators must maintain a  pretty sophisticated system.  Their requirements for security, retention, DR, availability, capacity, discovery, etc. would be extreme.  I wonder if someone in the Obama administration used GovDelivery in their previous job, and introduced it to the White House without ever telling the IT staff.