The scariest software project horror stories of 2012

Companies may also have other underlying financial problems but instead decide to "point the finger at the ERP implementation because they figure it's not as bad," he added.

Other companies, including Lumber Liquidators and Ingram Micro, have blamed lower profits on ERP woes.

Beverage distributor's lawsuit claims two-year effort resulted in 'absolutely useless' ERP software

Epicor found itself in court in January after its customer, beverage distributor Major Brands, sued the vendor on grounds it had delivered "absolutely useless" software after years of effort.

Major Brands started looking in 2008 for a replacement of some 20-year-old applications. The software still worked acceptably but Major Brands was self-supporting it and desired to move to a vendor-supported package, according to its suit.

It signed a deal with Epicor in September 2009 after giving the vendor a full rundown of its business processes, according to the lawsuit. Epicor assured Major Brands that its software was a good fit and would be up and running in mid-2011, it added.

Major Brands paid Epicor an initial $500,000 for software licenses and support and another $670,000 for the implementation, according to the lawsuit. The software was installed in November 2009 on Major Brands' servers but severe performance problems cropped up, it added. Major Brands spent another $100,000 on a hardware upgrade.

Major Brands paid Epicor an initial fee of about $500,000 for software license and support, and roughly $670,000 for implementation services.

The software was installed on Major Brands' hardware in November 2009, but "problems with operations, implementations and training" began almost at once, the complaint stated. Epicor's application was "running so slowly that it was not going to be suitable for use," it added.

Epicor told Major Brands that a hardware upgrade would help the performance, so the company spent about $100,000 on new machines, according to the complaint.

The Epicor software continued to suffer from severe latency problems and Epicor eventually told Major Brands that it would need to make "numerous changes and upgrades," with the project's go-live date pushed out significantly, according to the suit.

Major Brands and Epicor settled the suit in April, according to a court filing; terms were not disclosed.

'Antiquated' software leaves city out of millions in uncollected parking fines

Some parking violators in Long Beach, California, haven't had to cough up their fines due to an 'antiquated' software system used by the city's government, according to a report released in March by Long Beach Auditor Laura Doud.

Some $17.6 million in fines have gone uncollected due to the AutoProcess system's age, Doud's report said. "Staff time is consumed with manual processes, research and reconciliations surrounding parking citations billing and collecting because the existing system is antiquated," Doud's report said. "This results in limited collection efforts."