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

To: Bill Ounce who wrote (534)	11/25/1997 5:59:00 PM
From: C.K. Houston	Respond to of 9818

Bill, <Y2K looks to be a real problem. But, arrogant "Y2K Religion sermons" will convince people NOT to take this issue seriously.> I tried to do that here: techstocks.com Apparently, I didn't succeed. I think the message is EXTREMELY important. Some people may not like my style. But, I'm open to suggestions. And, would appreciate your constructive criticism on how my OVERVIEW link should be re-worked. Please email me. I didn't intend to appear arrogant. I was frustrated because implication was that there were no credible sources. When in fact, throughout that link were numerous credible sources. <Posts such as techstocks.com will lead many to question C.K.'s credibility.> I re-read this, and maybe I just can't see it ... but I can't see what specifically I said that would damage my credibility. Cheryl

To: Bill Ounce who wrote (534)	12/1/1997 1:05:00 PM
From: Bill Ounce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

David Star, Reader's Digest CIO, says no problem... computerworld.com excerpt: ----------------------------------------------------------- Reader's Digest: 'It wasn't that bad' Chief Information Officer David Starr at the Reader's Digest Association, Inc., in Pleasantville, N.Y., raised some eyebrows in July when he called the year 2000 problem a fraud, arguing that most development organizations could easily fix their millennium bugs. As of last month, he's even more sure he's right. "Our inventory and assessment is complete," Starr says. "It's turned out to be a lot less expensive than we expected. We had heard all the horror stories about how difficult and insidious these problems are to fix, and they're all pretty straightforward." Compared with other companies, Reader's Digest has a relatively small portfolio of about 8 million lines of code within the U.S. and an estimated 10 million worldwide, as well as 100T bytes of customer data just in the U.S. Based on Starr's work with some of the most critical systems, such as inventory and subscription systems that process dates several years into the future, "on a 1-to-10 scale of difficulty of program bugs, this is a 3," he says. "Everything will be done by January 1999," which means repaired, tested and reintegrated into production. Starr is confident his customers and suppliers will fix their systems quickly enough that it won't hurt Reader's Digest, because they're already getting pressure from their other customers to make the fixes. The federal government is the only major IS organization that may not get done in time, Starr says, "because their systems are so old." When the date hits... Starr says he's confident there'll be no doomsday effects because of year 2000 bugs. Unlike some other IS managers, he "absolutely" would trust airplane and air traffic control computers enough to fly on Dec. 31, 1999. "The ATMs will not start shooting out money, and the electricity will not stop," he scoffed. "That's nonsense." ----------------------------------------------------------- My personal (biased) commentary: Looks like this pointy hair is assuming that the entire computerized world infrastructure is as simple as his shop. Time will test the validity of that assumption. Notice that there one very interesting inconsistency to his story. He has full confidence in the FAA air traffic control system, but states that the Federal government is not going to make Y2K. Ha ha ha ha ha. Also wonder how RD subscriptions will be affected by failure of government entitlement programs :-)