Bullsh*t.
The following excerpt comes from the State of California 1997-98 Budget Preparation Guidelines (doc. 96-03). Enjoy.
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The Department of Finance recognizes that many information technology systems will need to be modified, replaced or eliminated due to the century change. Departments are fully responsible for ensuring their automated, electronic or computer based systems are capable of functioning in the new century. Each department should have an ongoing resources commitment to continued maintenance and operation of its information technology systems. All departments have been aware of the imminent century change, therefore, the DOF expects departments to fund these activities from existing budgetary authority. However, DOF does recognize that extenuating circumstances may exist or arise which require increased expenditure authority. Therefore, DOF may consider well-justified funding requests. In a separate Budget Letter, DOF will provide instructions for justifying century change funding requests.
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I don't know if you're familiar with how budget battles work in California, but I'm going to translate the above for you.
There is an existing budget for the Dept. of Information Technology. The bean counters have been bamboozled into halfway believing there is a year 2000 "crisis"; so they are willing to consider additional "well-justified" funding requests. I'm guessing that certain agencies will claim they have a Y2K "crisis" in order to get themselves new computers. I'm also guessing that - as is usually the case in California - these requests will be denied.
California has a $50 billion budget, I can ASSURE you that the state is not going to spend $200,000,000 on fixing some old code. There may be a chance that old systems will be replaced entirely out of existing monies and the justification will be Y2K compliance.
I always laugh whenever someone posts that some state/federal agency or company is about to spend millions or billions of dollars to fix their Y2K problems...as if this somehow translates into real money for Zitel.
Let me clue you in. Even if these figures were true and related only to fixing old code and not to hardware/software replacements and upgrades it still wouldn't matter. Zitel is a crap company. Always has been, always will be.
Let's see if I can put it another way. Worldwide expenditures on computer harware, software, and networking products combined will approach $700 billion this year. That's a big number, but it doesn't mean that every software, hardware or networking company will be a success or even make any money.
Zitel is running a scam. Don't get suckered. |
