for some unrelated historical perspective, in silicon valley, starting at least in the early 80s ... individuals with any kind of engineering or technical degree plus an MBA would command a large premium. however this was about the time that MBAs (and accountants) were starting to be blamed for ruining american business (attributed for the fanatical, total focus on quarterly numbers). this was also about the time i sponsored john boyd for some corporate briefings. he attributed much of the ruining of american business on the training that many corporate executives received as young officers in the early days of WW2. lots of past posts mentioning john boyd
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd
some of the smartcard issues were that there were various special interests that viewed some part or another of the activity as profit opportunity (as opposed to purely cost issue). in a past life, we had been indoctrinated with "walking" the complete end-to-end process as part of identifying cost-saving opportunities.
as to the smartcard reader disaster, i had noted that part of this was one area of the organization not communicating to another part of the organization. the consumer smartcard reader disasters had to do with problem supporting serial port interface. this had been identified by home banking operations (from the days of serial port modems) as a major excuse to migrate home banking to the internet in the mid-90s.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#34 The bank fraud blame game
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#35 The bank fraud blame game
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#38 The bank fraud blame game
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#60 Poll: oldest computer thing you still use
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#63 Poll: oldest computer thing you still use
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#65 Poll: oldest computer thing you still use
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#66 Poll: oldest computer thing you still use
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#75 Poll: oldest computer thing you still use
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#78 Poll: oldest computer thing you still use