Book publisher playing as tech provider is recipe for disaster

You may have heard recent news from the US about the revocation of a colossal education contract that went terribly wrong. Read more about it.

 http://www.dailynews.com/social-affairs/20150415/lausd-to-apple-stop-shipping-our-ipads-with-dodgy-pearson-software

Many giant publishers around the world believes that the ICT field is a cake walk because they have massive IT department etc etc etc. Pearson in this example is a clear cut case of trying to capture the market fast, but not really being able to deliver in a territory discovered less familiar than they initially anticipated. This is not unheard of, and many times it even takes place closer to you.

If I am a carpenter, I would collaborate with the blacksmith for any metal works. I would not try to do it myself as this is not my space of expertise. Same with the blacksmith, for any wood works, I expect him to come to me. Only at a later stage that I have had enough exposure and experience doing metal works myself that I would actually attempt taking metal works myself.

Moral of the story, do not try to eat more that we can chew.