Re: A possible reason why the floodgates have not opened for Y2K
I've been making some calls to ask vendors and companies to ask one simple question: with all this talk of companies spending tens to hundreds of millions on Y2K, why, at this late stage of the game, have we not heard any such contracts have been signed?
The answer, IMO, boils down to the distribution of code. Whereas a Fortune 500 company might report they have hundreds of millions of lines of code, that is for all their divisions all over the world combined. Problem is, when a Y2K vendor snags the corporate office, they don't necessarily get anything but the corporate code, which may only be a fraction of the total outstanding. Even when the corporate office endorses the Y2K vendor in no uncertain terms, very often the divisions have their own Y2K timetable and strategy.
At some point, corporate offices will get their own houses in order and then take stock of their subsidiaries. At that point panic may well set in when they find how far behind they are as a company. At that point they might just mandate that all code be sent to Y2K vendor A just to get it done on time. Add that to companies still trying to muddle through things themselves coming to a similar realization and you -- finally -- have the floodgates opening.
So, what it boils down to is a heck of a lot of dikes in corporate America have to break to get the flood we expect. Even worse, the Hoover dams of Y2K, government agencies, are the slowest of all to react. I'm not giving up my life preserver just yet.
- Jeff |
