2000 Date-Change Problem: Scam, Hype, Hoax, Fraud Message Board

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Technology Stocks : 2000 Date-Change Problem: Scam, Hype, Hoax, Fraud

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To: Bill Ounce who wrote (947)	12/10/1998 3:59:00 PM
From: Contra Guy	Read Replies (1) of 1361

>First off, my position on all this: I'm not an alarmist, just >someone that believes that Y2K will generate somewhere >between a moderate recession and a 30's style depression. The problem with these kind of predictions is how do you know that a recession was "generated" by Y2K problems? Okay, if the wheels completely fall off the economy it will be obvious, but suppose there are few disruptions but a downturn happens anyway? For the record, I also expect a moderate recession sometime in the next couple of years. But that's because I happen to believe in the business cycle, I don't buy the "new era" of endless prosperity that is going around these days. I also don't happen to believe that the United States is completely immune to the economic problems that are being experienced by other industrialized countries. But so what? Recessions are normal. Everybody over 30 has experienced one and lived to tell the tale. Regardless of when the next recession eventually takes hold, there will be plenty of folks pinning it squarely on Y2K. Even if everything went perfectly smoothly they would still say that it was the costs of preparation that was the culprit. >Plus, the smart programmers that know the >application have moved on to better things while the dumb >ones have been downsized. That is not my experience. In fact I have been very impressed with the professionalism of the people who are working on the problem. Companies ARE taking the issue seriously and pulling out the big guns. The biggest ramification of Y2K is that other important projects are getting pushed behind. As you noted, spending on maintenance is going to be higher - that comes out of the overall IT budget. So while the actual amounts of money are not significant for most large corporations - they would have spent it anyway - there is a substantial opportunity cost with spending a lot of time and effort doing system testing instead of implementing new technology. But that's not a "threat" that you will read about on too many Y2K sites. A final note on the air traffic control example you brought up. There is definitely a Y2K dimension to this issue, but it is important to keep it in context. IBM has been trying to get the government to upgrade for years. The company has been warning they won't support those old mainframes forever but the response has been "we have been paying our maintenance fees, so you have to support it". This tension between hardware and software vendors who want their customers to buy the latest and greatest, and customers who just want to stick with what they have, is as old as the computing industry and will not go away for the foreseeable future. Y2K gives the vendors some additional leverage to prod those reluctant clients to loosen the purse strings.

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