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

To: C.K. Houston who wrote (322)	10/26/1997 10:50:00 AM
From: Done, gone.	Respond to of 9818

Millennium and EMU will hurt, says Reuters: Excerpt form: sunday-times.co.uk "REUTERS, the news and information group, said it would face a double blow in the next couple of years from the "imperatives" of both the millennium bug and European monetary union. The company said yesterday it was unable to say precisely what the cost would be although it will clearly be significant. Peter Job, chief executive, said in a trading statement for the third quarter that the millennium and EMU were "likely to require significant diversion of effort to upgrade some products and phase out older ones". Although the millennium time bomb will partly be used as an opportunity to introduce new systems, a high proportion of the 400,000 Reuter terminals in the marketplace will require modification. The effect of EMU is less clear cut. Some business will contract, at least in the short-term as some currencies disappear, but there could be an upsurge in trading in the euro against the dollar and other leading currencies."

To: C.K. Houston who wrote (322)	10/26/1997 10:59:00 AM
From: Done, gone.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

UK Government stirs on millennium problem Excerpt from: pa.press.net "The [UK] government has finally made its own public statement urging businesses to take action on the year 2000 problem. In a sudden flurry of activity, the Department of Trade and Industry issued statements from Technology Minister Barbara Roche telling businesses to get on with fixes for the problem - the same thing that Taskforce 2000, the recently abandoned action group, has been doing for months. The government quoted research published by software company Sage that revealed that although awareness was high, levels of real action were depressingly low. "With only half of businesses having completed a systems audit, there is clearly a lot of work still to be done," the department said. "This research shows us that there are still far too many companies that are ill prepared for the century date change and time is running out," said Mrs Roche. "The message I want to leave with all businesses today is that companies - whatever their size - must realize that there is still a considerable amount to be done and they must not leave it any longer. "One of the key findings is that awareness of the problem is high, but action to solve it is low. The Government, in partnership with industry bodies, is already tackling the problem through the creation of Action 2000, whose priority is to get businesses to turn awareness into action. The Government is fully aware of the task that lies ahead and has always taken a leading role in tackling the century date change problem. I hope to see businesses now following this lead and taking action." Some of the key findings of the research are: - 45% have not yet completed a systems audit to prepare for year 2000 - 74.8% of respondents' customers are not insisting on them being millennium compliant - 53.4% of respondents are not insisting on their suppliers being millennium compliant - 57% are not planning to allocate budget in 1997/98 to resolving the problem Mrs Roche went on to say: "Some of the findings are clearly a cause for concern and businesses should take note. The amount being done so far, although good in some areas, is generally not good enough and needs to be improved upon with immediate effect. It is vital that UK companies do all that is necessary to solve the century date change problem." The announcement will ring hollow with Robin Guenier, chief executive of Taskforce 2000, who was told two weeks ago that his organisation would get no more funding and would be effectively sidelined by the creating of Action 2000. Mr Guenier has been spreading the same warnings for a year, and constantly berated the government (both Conservative and Labour) for lack of support, both financially and constructively. The DTI is thought to have found a leader for Action 2000, and should announce the person's identity next week."

To: C.K. Houston who wrote (322)	10/26/1997 11:08:00 AM
From: Done, gone.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

Small Businesses Head For Year 2000 Disaster Excerpt from: techweb.com "Small businesses are heading for disaster because they are grossly underestimating the work needed to fix the looming year 2000 computer glitch, a report said Wednesday. Although 97 percent of small and midsize companies said they have "an understanding of the business implications of the year 200 problem," 45 percent have not even completed a preliminary audit to check their exposure to the problem, said a survey published by British researcher Tate Bramald Consultancy. Roughly 57 percent of these businesses have not yet even allocated a budget in 1997-98 for resolving the glitch, even though recoding software to deal with the problem will take an estimated 12 to 18 months for most companies, Tate Bramald said. "Most people are not going to be ready for the year 2000," said Jyothi Banerjee, managing director of Tate Bramald Consultancy, which carried out the survey for the British government-backed Taskforce 2000 awareness-raising group. "If people think that they can wait until 1999 or even next year before starting to do something, then you have got to question their understanding of the problem," Banerjee said. "The picture is not a happy one." The problem is particularly serious, he added, because small and midsize businesses account for the vast bulk of all business -- 90 percent of all companies, in the case of the United Kingdom. More than 80 percent of smaller companies expect to fix the problem in-house, despite evidence that the problem is too serious for them to tackle alone, the survey said. The industries most at risk are retail and transport, whose year 2000 fixes are thought to be more complex and difficult than those of many other industries, Tate Bramald said."