The Media's Party Line: Big Firms Will Be OK; Small Firms Won't Be _____(news)
Link: sptimes.com
This story says, basically, "No big problem." Every local executive cited in this
report says his firm is either compliant now or will be soon. The repair task is
relatively easy, the readers are assured.
"Big firms will make it. Small firms won't." This is the media's party line. It
assumes that the bigger you are, the more money and expertise you have to fix y2k.
The reporters never ask the obvious: "Since the bigger the system, the more
complex it is, and the older it is, and the more legacy code and old chips it has, why
is it easier for a large organization to make the repair? Also, what about
management? Isn't the large system more dependent on computers than on people?
Isn't the information that runs the organization less flexible and therefore more
vulnerable?"
Contingency plans for a small firm are a lot easier to design and deploy than for a
large one. Contingency plans for a small farm are easier to adopt than for, say, the
United States military or the international banking system. But reporters never seem
to ask the obvious.
This is from the St. Petersburg TIMES (Feb. 9).
* * * * * * * *
Jan. 1, 2000: Is it a date that will live in technological infamy? Or will the computers
work?
If the date seems far away, it's not. Many companies and government agencies
have been working on the Year 2000 problem (or "millennium bug" or "Y2K" in
computer jargon) for years and have set deadlines to have the problem fixed this
year -- so they can spend 1999 testing to make sure everything works. . . .
Raymond James & Associates has made a major investment in making sure its
computer systems are ready for 2000.
The St. Petersburg financial services firm estimates its staff will devote between
28,000 and 32,000 programing hours to fixing the problem, according to Tim Eitel,
senior vice president. The cost: between $3-million and $5-million.
"If you have a plan, it is not difficult to get your systems Year 2000 compliant,"
Eitel said. "Some think it's rocket science. It's not rocket scientist-type coding." . . .
Electricity will still flow and customers will still get their bills in 2000, according to
both TECO and Florida Power Corp.
Florida Power installed several new computer systems over the past two years that
already are compliant with the Year 2000, and work on other software applications
is on schedule and should be done by the end of the year, spokeswoman Melanie
Forbrick said. . . .
State government has a lot of computers to check and make ready for 2000. The
effort will cost Florida taxpayers between $75-million and $90-million.
"We've completed an assessment, we have a cost estimate, we have a plan that on
paper has each of our 32 agencies completing necessary code changes and
necessary applications by June of 1999, most by December 1998," said Glenn
Mayne, project manager for the Year 2000 Task Force.
The question, Mayne said, is "whether we can execute the plan on time." . . .
Two years ago, Alfred Laiser set a goal for Pinellas County government computers
to be ready by this summer, a deadline he says will be met.
"We've been very pleasantly surprised," said Laiser, director of management
information systems for the county. "As people recognized the problem, there was a
willingness to cooperate and come together and reach consensus." . . .
GTE got an early start on Y2K, according to spokesman Richard Engwall, and is
making good progress.
"We expect to be among the first telecommunications companies to achieve
compliance," Engwall said.
The phone company's timetable is to have the systems vital to its business
operations and customer service ready by Sept. 30, with other, less-critical systems
fixed no later than mid-1999, Engwall said. . . .
Steven Friedman's company "provides a road map to compliance" for businesses.
And he says there are two types of companies that T3 Technologies
(www.T3T.com) in Tampa deals with:
"Companies that know what they're doing, that understand the problem, that have
resources and money in hand to do it. They know they have to do it."
And the other?
Smaller companies that "don't have the dollars or are not convinced the problem is
so severe that it will severely affect business," said Friedman, president of T3. . . .
His advice for procrastinators?
"Listen to the head of your computer department when he says you may have an
expensive problem. There are solutions that are not as expensive as you may think,
but nothing is as expensive as doing nothing."
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unbelievable ignorance:
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"The effort will cost Florida taxpayers between $75-million and $90-million.
"We've completed an assessment, we have a cost estimate, we have a plan that on paper has each of our 32 agencies completing necessary code changes and necessary applications by June of 1999, most by December 1998," said Glenn Mayne, project manager for the Year 2000 Task Force.
This idiot is in charge of a $90 million project and he says that they have completed a friggin' assesment and they have a plan that, of all the famous last words, "on paper" has 32 different agencies completing the changes in June of 1999!!
GREAT! that only leaves them 6 months of testing! Oh, that's right, "if everything goes right"...
This clown should be fired on the spot.
I think it would be wise for anyone of the followers of this thread who just happen to live in Florida, to call up this guy and tell him he's F*%K*D! |
