Amdahl Message Board - Msg: 601110

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Technology Stocks : Amdahl

AMH 31.47

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To: Sleeperz who wrote (61)	12/31/1996 8:27:00 AM
From: Andrew J McSherry	of 158

Saying that purchasing ORACLE and 4GL tools can solve all the Y2K problems is really a bit naive. Many companies have legacy systems which have little or no documentation or little or no source code. They have been developed and patched over several years by several different people. Some systems will also have been developed by third party companies which may not even be in business. Companies which have mission critical systems will probably spend just as much (probably more) money in data conversion from a proprietory DBMS to ORACLE or INFORMIX. Also, many of these systems, due to the cost of upgrading hardware and network infrastructures, do not lend themselves to a multi-tier client-server paradigm - thus generating new front-ends and using 4GLs is simply not an option. Any IT Professional will tell you that there is an awful lot of substandard software (spaghetti) code out there and it may not be possible to rewrite the code without having to go through formal requirements gathering and analysis phases. This can be expensive and costly. As a TRECOM employee working on converting existing legacy systems into client server for the telephone industry, I am fully aware of the difficulties involved in performing this function. Although I have not been involved in Year2000 activities, I think that its importance cannot be underestimated and will often be more cost effective than a complete rewrite. Look for Y2K activity to start increasing even more in 1997 and 1998. Companies who are embarking on system rewrites and who experience delays, may well ditch these projects in favour of a Y2K approach. Cheers, Andy.

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