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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cheeky Kid who wrote (8097)	8/19/1999 9:09:00 PM
From: Ken	Respond to of 9818

For Cheekey: Mitch Ratcliffe: Premier Counter of Pre-Hatched Chickens Link: zdnet.com. Comment: If you want to know where to get the latest information on pre-hatched chickens, contact Mitch Ratcliffe. In his latest report, he says: From Gary North's site, July 2, 1998: "Vendors supply most of the software for most industries, including banking. If vendors fail to supply compliant software in time, these industries will disappear. These jobs will disappear." Well, ol' Gary's been way off on this one. Unemployment is still near an all-time low, and the IT industry's inability to meet demand for outsourced programmers, which he argued would undercut industries' Y2K preparation has fallen off months before the New Year. Banks are 99 percent of the way to mission critical compliance, and not one company has failed due to Y2K problems, even though as many as 80 percent have experienced Y2K errors. Well, now, Mitch: I see that I've missed it again. I wrote that vendor-supplied software that is not compliant will cost jobs. I am so sorry I blew it. I forgot to say Year 2000 compliant software. I can see how you got confused. You figured I meant Year 1999 compliant software. There is no dount about it: vendors are still supplying Year 1999 compliant software. It's not 2000 yet. When it's April or May of 2000, and vendor software has caused no problems, write a follow-up column. In 1999, programmers can write patches. In 2000, they will not be able to. Workarounds are possible in 1999 because operating systems are still in 1999. The key to understanding the Year 2000 Problem is to understand that, all over the world, every noncompliant computer will start having problems . . . in 2000. It's the simultaneity and universality of the problem that constitutes the problem. Or, as I keep saying, y2k is systemic. If y2k is essentially trivial, then nothing much will happen. That is, if inaccurate computation by computers is not a problem, y2k will not be a problem. They have been programmed wrong for 40 years. Most of them are still programmed wrong. This is not a U.S. problem alone. It is a worldwide problem. There is no compliant industry. There is no compliant money center bank. So, let us all count our respective chickens when they hatch. Y2K chickens will hatch mostly in 2000. Link: zdnet.com