One in ten too late for 2000: Cap Gemini
'MORE than 10 per cent of Australian companies have virtually no chance of making their computer systems year-2000-compliant before the end of 1999'
Cap Gemini's TransMillennium Services (TMS) director Raymond Chu said research conducted by it in Europe showed an alarming number of companies had left it too late and would suffer system failure.
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'By IAN GRAYSON<Picture: The Australian>17feb98
MORE than 10 per cent of Australian companies have virtually no chance of making their computer systems year-2000-compliant before the end of 1999, according to global IT services company Cap Gemini.
Cap Gemini's TransMillennium Services (TMS) director Raymond Chu said research conducted by it in Europe showed an alarming number of companies had left it too late and would suffer system failure.
"I have no reason to believe that Australia is any different," he said.
While this is grim news, it has created a vast market for companies providing analysis and conversion services.
Last week, Cap Gemini announced a partnership with newly established Australian company, UPI Software.
UPI Software will market Cap Gemini's TMS, a Y2K compliance offering for companies running IBM MVS-based systems.
TMS was developed from techniques used in a major Y2K conversion project for a United States bank in 1993.
To support the offering, the company has established a global network of 20 application renovation centres where MVS code is analysed and corrected.
The centres use software analysis tools incorporating artificial intelligence which allows experience gained through previous projects to be used to accelerate work on others.
Cap Gemini has already analysed almost three billion lines of MVS code for Y2K compliance. Mr Chu said there were about 200 MVS sites in Australia, and he planned to capture at least 10 per cent of this market.
He said the UPI/Cap Gemini partnership offering differed from others on the market as it was a "full service approach".
UPI staff formed a project team to give on-site support and advice while Cap Gemini provided the code renovation centres.
He said some companies attempted to solve their Y2K problems internally by purchasing analysis tools, but this inevitably ended up being more expensive and time consuming.
UPI Software general manager Dominicus Cheung said the TMS service was, on average, between 10 and 20 times faster than the internal "workbench" approach.
This made the service very appealing to prospective customers faced with a rapidly approaching deadline.
A typical MVS program is between 1000 and 1500 lines of code and, globally, the company has the capacity to process around 10,000 programs a day.
"TMS represents about 10 per cent of Cap Gemini's global turnover," Mr Chu said.
"In the past 12 months, this has been between $US200 million ($294 million) and $US300 million and we expect this to rise between 15 and 20 per cent during the next 12 months." '
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