One Medium-Size Success; Many Barely Started Projects
Link: datamation.com
A medium-size insurance company with 3.5 million lines of code says that it is
almost 2000-compliant. It began its repair project in 1995. Meanwhile, most large
companies have barely begun.
This story was in DATAMATION (Dec).
* * * * * * *
Paul Petry, left, and Vincent Lioce of Boston Mutual are ready to face the new
millennium head-on. . . .
Lioce, vice president of information systems and services at Canton,
Mass.-based Boston Mutual Life Insurance, is at the helm of a major Y2K
conversion project that is slated to wrap up,"with some minor exceptions," by
the end of 1997.
. . . But as of the third quarter of 1997, only 57% of large U.S. companies had
completed their Y2K assessments, secured the requisite funding, and begun
some code conversion, according to data from the META Group, the Stamford,
Conn., consulting firm. A whopping 41% had not finished with their Year 2000
plans or were waiting to finalize funding.
"An awful lot of folks are still in denial," says Matt Hotle, research director at
the Gartner Group, also in Stamford. In fact, only 2% of large U.S. companies are
in the enviable position of being done with the effort, according to META
numbers. Most, like Boston Mutual, are in the financial services industry. . . .
And his mind has never been far from the sleeping problem waiting to explode
in his systems on 1/1/00, if not sooner. "We have known about this for a long,
long, long time," says Lioce, a trim, silver-haired man with a no-nonsense air. It
is precisely his long-term involvement and intimate understanding of the
company's systems that gave Boston Mutual the edge in dealing with the
century change. Another important factor was that Lioce was quickly able to
enlist meaningful support and financial commitment from Paul Petry, the
company's president and chief operating officer. . . .
The project is proceeding, with about 75% of the fixed code tested and back in
production. As companies are discovering, the bulk of the effort is in testing.
But this did not come as a surprise to Lioce, who had dedicated several people
full time to acceptance and millennium testing. . . .
Lioce is aware that he is the envy of all who have not had the foresight to deal
with Y2K by now. But will he have to reopen the project in 1998 or beyond?
"Companies may think they are done, but they may find out later they're not.
There are so many variables," says Mike Egan, program director for enterprise
datacenter strategies at the META Group.
While Boston Mutual rates an A-, most companies still rate a disappointing
Daverage in their current Y2K conversion progress.
Though many companies have improved slightly in their progress toward Year
2000, they still have a long way to go, says Mike Egan, program director for
enterprise datacenter strategies for META Group, the Stamford, Conn.,
consulting firm.
Egan tracks company Y2K performance. He found that where companies had a
D average based on five assessment categories in the second quarter 1997, they
merited only a tiny increase to a Daverage in the third quarter. This isn't exactly
a major leap forward. And 70% of the companies still are behind schedule, he
says. . . . |
