Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Y2K (Year 2000) Stocks: An Investment Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BM who wrote (8902)	1/11/1998 7:53:00 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 13949

From the Y2KInvestor Website: Background- On the Y2K Investor radio program, we occasionally get a caller who takes us to task for being alarmists. Usually their rationale is that we have no way of proving our assertions of the inevitability of widespread systems failures as a result of the Y2K date problem. While they are correct that we cant predict what the future holds, what we can do is apply proven scientific methods and ri gorous academic disciplines to the data we do have and reasonably make educated forecasts about the future. To that end, the work of Dr. Leon Kappelman of the University of North Texas and Capers Jones of the Software Productivity Research, Inc. has provided the solid research and academic rigor that allows Y2K believers to respond to their critics. Recently, at The Y2K Investor , we had Dr. Kappelman -- the Associate Professor of Information Systems and Co-chairs the Year 2000 Working Group of the Society for Information Management (SIM) -- on the show for the third time. Interview- We first asked Leon to recount the basic findings of the SIM survey released in September of 1996. This detailed, 300-point survey canvassed 207 CIOs and Y2K Program Manag ers at enterprises averaging over $2 billion in annual revenue. In the aggregate, this represents 8% of the U.S. economy. At that time, the most striking findings were that only 10% of companies had actually begun code renovation, with fully 30% repor ting no approved Y2K Plan in place. Estimates were that 65% of all applications had to be repaired and that the average estimated costs to fully remediate the Y2K problem would be 30% of each companys annual IT budget. This survey was re-administered during the summer of 1997, and the most recent results are less than reassuring. One year later, only 25% of the surveyed companies had code under renovation and the total estimated cost to remediate had grown to 38% of one years IT budget. For the first time serious issues were raised about embedded systems, networks, and desktop systems. Dr. Kappelman pointed out that in addition to meeting rigorous professional standards, his survey was also cross referenced to similar surveys conducted by the American Banking Association and the National Federation of Retailers and found to be totally consistent. Professor Kappelman then recounted a striking statistic emphasizing the dimension of the embedded chip problem. Over 4 billion chips were created in 1996 and only 10% of them went into devices that are commonly understood as computers. The rest went into programmable devices such as elevators, medical devices, power plants, automated manufacturing plants, etc. An unknown number of these have datedness and finding and fixing them presents a management and technical problem that is as a whole unresolvable in the time remaining before 2000. A tape of this interview with is available through The Y2K Investor website, or by calling (301) 924 6643. y2ktimebomb.com - Jeff