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

To: John Mansfield who wrote (739)	12/20/1997 2:45:00 PM
From: David Eddy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9818

John - Congressman Sessions believes a Y2K Czar must be appointed Any clues as to precisely who would be in line for such a wonderful postion? - David

To: John Mansfield who wrote (739)	12/20/1997 5:04:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 9818

Y2K-INTERNET - 'Year 2000 Problem Slows Internet Development' entmag.com Found on www.year2000.com. Well, I was just waiting for such an article. This makes a stronger point for the thesis that increasingly in 1998, all IT vendors will be judged by: 1). what part of their business helps in solving Y2K 2). what part does not help solve Y2K Valuation at the stock market of firms doing much in 2) and not shifting towards 1) will be accordingly lower, IMHO. Any thoughts? Regards, John --------------------------- Michele Rosen December 17, 1997 What a difference a year makes. During the past 12 months, software and hardware vendors have released a variety of products designed to help companies create advanced Web-based applications that incorporate host-based data. But most companies have yet to take advantage of this new technology. While there seem to be a number of reasons for this delay, several industry experts agree the year 2000 problem is at least partially to blame. "Resources have been cordoned off to work on the year 2000, so there's less people around to work on new stuff," says Tom Gormley, a senior analyst for Forrester Research Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.). "As it gets closer to the witching hour, companies just start to freak out, and so everything stops." As a result, after the ball has dropped and the champagne has been drunk, corporate IT managers may find that the year 2000 problem has cost their companies more than money; they may have also lost the chance to get a head start on their competitors in the race to build Web-enabled applications. It may also mean that, for now, advanced Internet applications are unable to gain the critical mass of users they need to succeed. "If a large portion of companies are held back from doing Internet development, that will make the Internet less valuable for companies who do move forward," Gormley says. ...

To: John Mansfield who wrote (739)	12/21/1997 6:10:00 AM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 9818

Y2K-PC-SOFTWARE - X-BASE: 48 million applications? This I have found on X-BASE; thanks to Charles P. Reuben. Any thoughts on the business implications? One thing is clear: this is another replacement / remediation opportunity; it will turn IMHO into an industry on it's own the coming 2 years. Just waiting for the first announcements for X-Base scanning tools etc (may be there are some on the market; have not seen any though). John -------------------------- cinderella.co.za from Charlie Reuben Dallas(Home of the Meyerson Symphony Hall,the US' BEST) RE: All XBASE Problems in the PC and the Cost to fix.(25-50 Billion???) Part I Intoduction to the PC X BASE Problem: No one on these Year 2000 study groups is looking at the real problem for the PCs. As they say every 4 years here, "Its the APPLICATIONS,dummies!!! Not the programs. It was what was done to those programs that have built up a mess that is a scaled down version of the MAIN FRAME Business Application Problems. And...its worse because there is some agreement on what you can do to isolate and identify and fix the Big Boys. There has been little said or done that even indicates that ANYONE is even looking at the most wide spread mess of all, the X BASE problem. .... I do not think that the cost of the X Base problem has been included in most of the Year 2000 studies, yet the applications infest many large companies and must be fixed. Given the nature of Corporate Non Disclosure policies in most Companies, such proprietary information is not "given out". I can only think that if there are 8 million "seats" for Lotus "NOTES" there must be 5 times as many customized "things" sitting in the Big Companies. ... PART II Consider the X Base Problem. There are 8 million in the dBASE installed base per Borland's numbers. dBASE's Data base "engine". Lets triple that to arrive at a modest amount of copies of data base software in the field including "compiled applications and double that again to reflect the multiple number of applications per desk. <so that is 8 * 3 * 2 = 48 million apps; JM> MOST if not all of the 'custom" software applications use date field information in some manner just as COBOL applications do. Since dBASE,Foxbase, SuperBase,Paradox and Clipper amoung others were "easy to work with" readily 'adaptable" and had the data base at their core, these were often the center of development for VARS and "business partners" (B.P.s).aka: "Solution Providers". .... Part III: A Case Example: Consider: Super Widgets, Inc. makes 1,500 line items of stock widgets and customizes some 5,000 more for special customers with 500 Manufacturer's reps sending in orders by fax,phone and telex. Sometimes one of the more advanced uses Email. The process begins. Somewhere along the way, Sam Super decided to "computerize" so at the Country Club bar he found out from the bartender that I.M.A Schlocker specialized in Small Computers for "important business men like Mr.Super". I.M writes up a full scale integrated package for all of Sam's departments and pretty much does a bang up job using Zippy BASE. (I love Borland so I don't want to say dBASE or the Foxy word). Many of them look a bit like this: ------------------------------------------------------- ---- foolish.prg ...prints a list of foolish things business men have to do ona given date; written in Zippy Base by I.M.A.Schlocker 4/1/87; Property of I.Schlocker and Co. Call for special programs at my day job at 7-11 (212-555-1212); Modified by E.B.Schlocker II 4/1/92 ; "------------------------------------------------------ ------------" clea all; set colo to y+/b; set century off; use foo inde foo,foo2,foo3; do evnmofoo ; @ 20,20 say "Printing a list of today's items for you"; repo form foolist.frm ; clos all end;(if evnmofoo was a routine) end; return NOW...the part I want to stress is that for each and every little one of these here guys, inVARiably there IS a date field and inVARiably , the neighborhood VAR set the Cent off (just in case) to make sure that some two fingered typist didn't have the chance to muck things up much. Never did anyone exit a program and set Cent ON. So, you have in every possible way shape and form, applications written "to order" for some "entity" or "market" each with its own peculiar way of doing things, names of fields, methods and procedures which internally depend upon those names and data types to produce whatever was supposed to come out the other end of the machine. appplication TWO: mostly P Code: order widget issue ship orders issue invoice post A/R monitor A/R call for check when late post A/R paid post G/L if we just look at: issue invoice: ship stuff shipping notice and or bill of lading terms: 2% ten net 30 days 1.5 if over 60 days retro to 30. (pretty standard) integrated with A/R Here we see the need for the use of 'memory variables mem vars" If those Mem Vars depend on a 2 YY date field and can not read the 4 YYYY field we need to rewrite this application. And..we now open up an entire can of worms,especially the more tightly knit the entire "integrated package" was built. Since every name and field may have some use in other programs and modules, tweaking Super Widgets nose can make his feet hurt or even drop off completely. ...