I copied this from TechWeb. It talks about the impact of the new European currency expected to come on line next year. It mentions that $100 billion in software will be spent, and implies that hardware, PC's, etc, will also have to be upgraded. Compaq, in light of the interest it has shown in getting into E Commerce, IMHO, is on top of this like white on rice.
In the next 12 months, many IS managers will need to
complete an assignment that's at least as complex as the
massive year 2000 fix. This project is fraught with more
uncertainties than the date-field conversion, it's likely to
be just as costly at least in Europe, and -- to top it off
-- it has to be done a full year sooner. What is this IT
monster? The arrival of a single European currency.
The European Monetary Union currency, called the
euro, will be phased in during three years, beginning on
the first day of 1999 when participating countries start
using it for non-cash transactions. Under the EMU
timetable, euro coins and bank notes will go into
circulation on Jan. 1, 2002. Six months later, the euro
will replace the national currencies of the participating
countries and become their only valid currency.
The planned change will affect not only IS managers
working for European companies, but also those at
U.S. companies that have European units or partners --
and these days, that's nearly every company. For
technologists, the message is clear: Get your financial
computer systems ready for the euro -- or risk losing
business. "If your customers in Europe demand euro
support and you don't have it, you won't be able to
offer bids and could lose business," says Nick Jones,
research director of Gartner Group's European office in
London.
Yet many companies have delayed assessing the cost
and difficulty of converting their financial systems to
handle the euro. That's mainly because, until recently,
political and regulatory wrangling have left them
uncertain about exactly when the conversion will take
place and which countries will adopt the currency.
These uncertainties are quickly fading.
"The bets from Europe are that there's a 90 percent to
95 percent chance of this happening," says John
Devereaux, head of consultancy Price Waterhouse's
banking practice in New York. "Everyone is starting to
wake up to the fact that it could be a big deal for their
IT infrastructure."
The euro is "creeping up on CIOs' radar screens," adds
Rowan Snyder, chief technology officer at accounting
and professional services firm Coopers & Lybrand in
New York. "We're trying to understand the impact on
financial systems."
That impact is expected to be substantial. Industrywide,
software-conversion costs in Europe alone will top
$100 billion, Gartner Group says it estimates. This
estimate includes the costs of upgrading larger
corporate systems, but not PCs or the software that
will also need to support the euro.
Also, the euro issue, combined with mounting year
2000 conversion efforts, will create an even greater
strain on already tight IT resources and could extend
the IT labor shortage to 2004, Meta Group says it
predicts.
The adoption of the euro will affect a multitude of
systems and applications, including general ledger,
accounts payable and receivable, taxation, price lists,
payroll, expense accounts, and historical databases. It
will also affect EDI and other e-commerce systems.
On a more mundane level, the euro symbol will need to
be incorporated in computer keyboards, screen and
printer fonts, and applications.
E.H.F. |
