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To: tech who wrote (2207)	1/18/1998 7:18:00 PM
From: Rick Voteau	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3391

Article from CBS marketwatch says prices are going down. While this makes for good press, is it true?? Article presented below. NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- There's a pricing shift taking place amongÿ some Year 2000 companies that will see those companies that offer "soup to nuts" solutions benefit, one consultant says. The Year 2000 industry is moving away from charging clients ÿÿ "per-line-of-code" that needs to be adjusted before Year 2000 wrecks havoc on those computer systems that cannot process the change in dates, consultant Murray Newcomb said at a Year 2000 conference in New York sponsored by the Securities Industry Association. Year 2000 companies such as Computer Horizons, Acceler8 and Intersolv used to fetch $1 per line of code, but as competition moves in, the price is going ÿ down to 30 cents, he said. "Line-of-code charging is going to the bucket ÿ now." Companies that switch to charging, for instance, $5,000 "per seat," or per workstation platform, could draw more business. Reason: the end cost to aÿ firm with many workstations is likely to be lower. "In 1986, there were no Y2K firms. In 1987, there were about 30 who could charge $1.10 per line of COBOL, and seven months later it's 20 cents a line," said Newcomb, who has advised firms in the financial sector on Y2K compliance. That's one reason why there is consolidation in the Y2K industry, he said. Still, other analysts point out that as Year 2000 deadlines near, firms might have to pony up greater fees to seure the services of millennium bug squashers. More news on Year 2000. ÿÿ The securities industry is further along in Y2K testing and implementation than most other industries.One Year 2000 business solutions vendor, Viasoft, this week said it paidÿ $7.75 million in cash, not including additional sales payments, to acquire the Canadian Y2K assessment and analysis software tools company, EraSoft Technologies. "Combining the technologies of the two companies will allow our customers and partners to tackle century date change through a single provider, using Viasoft's. Year 2000 solutions for the mainframe along with EraSoft's. technology for the desktop," Jean-Luc Valente, senior vice president of marketing for Viasoft, said in a prepared release. Viasoft is not the only company moving in that direction, Newcomb said. "A lot of people are going to be there; it's a matter of marketability," he said. .

To: tech who wrote (2207)	1/18/1998 11:51:00 PM
From: tech	Respond to of 3391

Bank Holiday: One Day Only (We Promise!)______________________ (news) Link: infoseek.com Banking regulators in the U.S. are now discussiong the possibility of a Dec. 31, 1999 bank holiday. Just one day to test the fix. That's all they'll need. Honest! * * * * * * * * * NEW YORK, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Banking officials grappling with the Year 2000 computer glitch are considering declaring a holiday on Dec. 31, 1999, to pave a smoother road into the new millennium. . . . The proposal ''may offer meaningful benefits,'' said William McDonough, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Speaking at the SIA Year 2000 conference in New York, he added, ''we have to do it either soon or not at all,'' to minimize costs. . . . George Colony, president of Forrester Research Inc., stood behind the idea of a one-day holiday, although he also said that two or three consecutive holidays would only serve to ''lengthen out the pain.'' Forrester conducts studies into the potential impact of the Year 2000 bug and recently said financial systems would be among those most affected by the Year 2000 problem. After interviewing 51 information technology executives, Forrester also reported that 52 percent of respondents have run into date-related problems already, including an insurance company that cited incorrect calculations for payment schedules involving long-term coverage plans. . . . ''If the decision is not made by March of this year, we may as well not make it,'' said Richard Lindsey, director of Market Regulations at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

To: tech who wrote (2207)	1/19/1998
From: tech	Respond to of 3391

Transportation Department Way Behind, Says Government Report ________(news) Link: online.guardian.co.uk Comment: The Department of Transportation is far behind, warns the Office of Management and Budget. * * * * * * * * In its December report, OMB expressed particular concern about the Transportation Department, with particularly "poor progress" by the Federal Aviation Administration, responsible for the safety of the flying public. As of mid-November, the Transportation Department had not completed the assessment phase for a number of its mission critical systems, including the FAA's air traffic control systems. The FAA itself has completed assessments on only 38 per cent of its systems while identifying an additional 245 systems as mission critical. . . . If the US has major concerns about its air traffic management systems, the problems are likely to be even greater overseas, which could be a dampener on global business activity. "Even if the airline industry announces that most flights will depart as scheduled, the public's concerns about safety could lead to significant cancellations of reservations, especially to Christmas 1999 vacation destinations. Air freight, package and mail delivery services could also be seriously disrupted and impaired," said Ed Yardeni, chief economist with Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. The FAA has found no quick solutions. In November, the agency faced a time and date software problem that threatened to bring down one of its air traffic management systems. It was forced to manually sift through more than a million lines of code after software tools failed to find everything that needed fixing.

To: tech who wrote (2207)	1/19/1998 12:08:00 AM
From: tech	Respond to of 3391

2/3 of Big U.S. Businesses Are Still Without Detailed Y2K Plans ______(news) Link: www2.computerworld.com While things are better than they were in April, 1997, they aren't good. In fact, they're bad. Most American business leaders are still waiting to address their y2k problems This is from COMPUTERWORLD (Jan. 11). * * * * * * * If 1998 is going to be the year that corporate America finally rolls up its sleeves and fixes many its year 2000 problems, then last year could very well have been the year in which chief executives woke up to the potential seriousness of the millennium bug. . . . A series of tracking polls taken last year by Cap Gemini America, a New York-based year 2000 services provider, showed that corporate awareness about the date-change problem grew last year. Cap Gemini raised the following two issues in April, August and December in a tracking poll of 108 information technology directors and managers. The survey was conducted by Rubin Systems, Inc. in Pound Ridge, N.Y.: Full-fledged strategy begun: April, 1997: 13% August, 1997: 16% December, 1997: 20% Detailed plan in place: April, 1997: 18% August, 1997: 24% December, 1997: 33% . . . . But despite the apparently slow growth in awareness, there is no shortage of year 2000 optimism among those who took part in the survey. About 87% of the companies surveyed expect more than half of their systems to be compliant by Jan. 1, 1999. . . . Some estimates of year 2000 costs: Gartner Group, Inc.: $600 billion; closer to $1 trillion with litigation costs included Capers Jones, Software Productivity Group: More than $3.6 trillion U.S. government: Its fixes alone will cost at least $3.9 billion Canadian government: It will spend about $1 billion to fix its computers Statistics Canada: $ 12 billion . . . Four out of five companies have been underestimating their year 2000 costs. . . . Some live by the Scout motto, "Be prepared." But when it comes to the year 2000, many organizations are so sure their systems will be ready that they're not even bothering to prepare for the unexpected in the event something breaks down on or after Jan. 1, 2000. Contingency planning is a secondary concern, The Yankee Group found in a recent survey of year 2000 project managers at 25 companies. The survey indicated that only nine of the 25 companies - or 36% - had contingency plans in place as of the third quarter last year. And only seven of 25 - or 28% - have identified third-party processors to run systems that can store data in the event of a malfunction in their primary information systems. . . . The Dutch airline KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has taken an extreme contingency plan. It announced in November that it may ground its aircraft or refuse to fly certain routes if year 2000 software problems pose a safety threat.