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Technology Stocks : Data Dimensions -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (4114)	1/25/1998 6:21:00 AM
From: Paul van Wijk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4571

Ron, >> Other than that, I guess your comment regarding going long on >> DDIM being a mistake, was meant in jest?? Yes, it was. The reason I was a little ironical is that I know it is impossible to convince people from "the other" side. Not a DDIM- specific subject. When I really put down my real thoughts I may sound to emotional. It is so clear for me what will happen in the next 2 years. It is like the Titanic. The moment it hit the ice-berg nobody paniced immediately. But minute by minute the ship made more water. We are not so far from the moment we will get the panic-situation in the IT-landscape. At this moment there is already a tremendous shortage of programmers world-wide. I see this every day in my daily job. Only 2 years ago it wasn't easy to change job. Now every moron that can spell the word computer gets a contract, a ton+ salary and a lease-contract. And the nightmare haven't even started yet. I mainly judged DDIM by the number of new employees. There will be so much demand soon that it doesn't matter if the product is good, if the management has brains or whatever. We will see expotential growth for any company because demand outpaces supply, and we have a hard deadline for the project. Another point is that, for example, "the internet-commerce" is also close to the point of exponential growth so the experienced people have so much better oppurtunities outside the Y2k-area. What a lot of people don't see is that Y2k-demand was disappointing because still a lot of (small cap) companies underestimating the problem. Or even worse, they still don't know they have a problem. In Holland the National organization of Middle and Small cap companies advices there members to do nothing. Because they argue that the supplier is responsible. How stupid. In the best case they win in court. But in the meantime they are out of business. Dutch government has made an agreement with the main IT-suppliers to already allocate resources. Because they are sure they will needed them. They are training retired people, they want to use students etc. And they are still sure it won't be enough. Far from that. Anyhow, the shorts will sure have fun the next weeks, months or what- ever. But I want to bet everything that our time will come when the Y2k-problem will be headline-news day after day. And those who expect it will all end 1 jan 2000, forget about it. It will only be the beginning. Last week I spoke to the manager of the service-practice Millenium of Origin, the biggest IT-service company in Holland. He told me it is too late to fix all the bugs. Their approach is to search for logical errors in system. For example, when a 2 digit- year is part of a unique key, it cost months or years to solve the problem. Because redesign is needed. They only scan the software and test to find the majority of the bugs. The other bugs will be fixed after 1 jan 2000. So far a very depressing post from the Netherlands. Paul