To: Skeptic who wrote (515 ) 11/25/1997 10:57:00 AM From: C.K. Houston Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Skeptic,I have no doubt that if this were November, 1999, there would be no way to avoid an economic and social disaster. But two years is a long time. Do you think a disaster is already inevitable? >If one part of this picture is fixed, BUT the other's aren't ... things are disrupted, corrupted or stopped. Where do a lot of manufacturers get various parts to build their primary product? What happens if they can't get these parts? Think about it. The biggest time and financial investment is in the testing phase. So, in these instances we're looking at 2-4 year average turn-around time to be compliant .Now look abroad. They haven't been doing anything. Europe's been concentrating on the EuroDollar, not Y2K. Asia's in economic turmoil, and has done nothing about Y2K. Mexico formed a governement committee last month to see IF Year 2000 is a problem. So, forget about them. And, they're our second biggest trading partner. If we operated in total isolation, without interacting with other countries, while we'd still see disruption and business failure ... disaster would not necessarily be inevitable. But, that's not the case. Do you think a disaster is already inevitable? >Think about it. Look at the whole picture.And what I've discussed above, solely relates to MIS ... not embedded chips. No one realized embedded chips would be a problem until several years ago. There are billions and billions of embedded chips out there. The estimate is that 5-10% will fail. The only way to fix them, is to find them ... then replace them individually Electrical engineers, experienced plant personnel & systems integrators are required to fix embedded systems. There are NOT enough of them. Their numbers pale in comparison to the vast army of computer programmers out there.
