My (completely speculative) hunch is that they may have been chasing efficiencies beyond the scope of uniforms, or even beyond the scope of the army.
For example, the solution may not have worked well with other procurement items and they wanted a single platform. Or the navy already had an SAP contract that could be leveraged without spending money on a separate stand-alone army solution.
So it can look like a bad decision that generated local inefficiency while globally it was a better choice. That's not to say SAP actually delivered on those promises.
Or this small company built by a pair of professors didn't have the customer support arm or continuity guarantees to service an organization as large as the US Army.
Its always good to call out corruption, but its also important to realize when a situation is actually crazy complex and while its an awesome story might not be worth formulating a summary judgement from.
That could very well be the case. I looked up the professor and the company he created for this solution and the link is dead.
However, for an organization like the army that spends $$$ on logistics, I would bet they would continually fund something like this if it showed enough promise. One thing the DoD and Congress are good at is throwing money at R&D efforts.
Another thing is requiring continuity clauses in the contract. Such as, in the case of going out of business or otherwise deciding to discontinue the project, the IP and source code needs to be turned over.
And this is why enterprise software is always so horrid to use when compared to a simplistic web app. It’s about features above all else. If someone can do their job, that’s all that matters. And tightening up the UX around that workflow falls to the very bottom priority against developing new features.
For example, the solution may not have worked well with other procurement items and they wanted a single platform. Or the navy already had an SAP contract that could be leveraged without spending money on a separate stand-alone army solution.
So it can look like a bad decision that generated local inefficiency while globally it was a better choice. That's not to say SAP actually delivered on those promises.