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

To: John Mansfield who wrote (1489)	4/25/1998 5:01:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 9818

Airlines, Boeing, Power station 'Hi, Another little tidbit Subject: Media Sighting: The Toronto Star Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 12:34:25 -0500 From: Jo Anne Slaven <slaven@rogerswave.ca> Organization: Rogers WAVE Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000 This article appears on page 3 of The Toronto Star, April 22, 1998. It doesn't appear to be on the Star's web site, so I'll quote the whole thing. Note especially the last paragraph. Jo Anne Year 2000 bug has airlines concerned. Ottawa (CP) The Canadian airline industry says that, despite being ahead of other countries in readying its computers for the new millennium, there are no guarantees that it will be safe to travel by plane on Jan. 1, 2000. The major airlines might decide not to land in certain locations around the world because these airports have not dealt adequately with the computer problem and service in Canada could be cut if there are systems failures, Clifford Mackay, president of the Air Transport Association of Canada, told the Commons industry committee yesterday. "Our first priority in addressing this problem is safety - nothing else is more important to us," said Mackay, adding that Canadian carriers could spend more than $100 million to make their systems year 2000 compliant. Jets Need Fixing Domestic airlines and the air traffic control authority, Nav Canada, say they are on schedule for having their systems fixed and tested by the new millennium. But the interdependent nature of the industry means other unprepared carriers or even suppliers could throw the whole network off. Worldwide, an estimated 13,000 ticketing terminals will have to be replaced. Boeing recently advised the industry that all of its jets will have to be fixed to deal with the millennium bug. Between 50 and 75 per cent of Air Canada's computers will be replaced before the year 2000. Canadian Airlines said most of its computers will need to be fixed, not replaced. In a separate presentation, Ottawa Hydro also admitted that it could not give any sweeping assurances that service would not be interrupted. Electricity systems are part of a huge interconnected grid, which extends into the U.S. _____ Path: news.worldonline.nl!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!pln-w!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews2 From: Daniel Weller <weller@revealed.net> Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000 Subject: Canada-airlines and power grid Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:01:10 -0500 Organization: extra.newsguy.com Lines: 72 Message-ID: <353E3E76.8397CB59@revealed.net> Reply-To: weller@revealed.net NNTP-Posting-Host: p-149.newsdawg.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en] (Win95; I) To: MIKE CARPENTER <mac1@netins.net> Xref: news.worldonline.nl comp.software.year-2000:36427

To: John Mansfield who wrote (1489)	4/25/1998 5:09:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9818

VERRRRY Interesting! DC Y2K meeting report - Cory, David Eddy, others ' Competition will kick in and the members will want to look as good as possible.': lots of y2k engagements announcements to be expected as a consequence the coming months! John _____________ 'Hi Dad, We had a good time at the WDCY2K meeting last night. We met Cory Hamasaki. Cory's presentation was very much toned down compared to his comments that I've read on the web. The panelists at the meeting were David Eddy, Cory, Alan Simpson of comlinks.com, and Lyn Kelly -NASD Year 2000 Program Director of the National Association of Securities Dealers. Here's a brief synopsis of their comments: David Eddy: The Good, the Bad and the Possible (about Small/Medium Enterprises). The Good More nimble More standard packages in use Can rapidly replace Y2K-ok packages Fewer decision makers Smaller entrenched fiefdoms Easier to move through the stages (awareness, denial, acceptance) Possible to hibernate on Y2K day. The Bad Far more of them Difficult to reach Very low awareness Not hearing about Y2K from their trusted sources (like CPA's, industry organizations, etc.) Lack of resources Thin IT/systems thinking skills Much obsolete hardware/software If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Misconception that Y2K is only a mainframe/big iron issue Likely to be stuck with custom applications Existing labor pool will be recruited away from them The Possible War mobilization mentality ASAP Begin (as always) with awareness 101 SBA must push awareness to SMEs Sell Y2K door-to-door like war bonds Vendors (hardware/software, local consultantcies and trainers) to offer all-in-one bundles A technical/project management skills training effort to form small tams of low-cost labor (remember, this isn't rocket science) - clone/franchise at the local level. Lyn Kelly: NASD Year 2000 Program Self-regulatory organization for the securities industry Members include Merrill Lynch all the way down to one-man firms Small business is 81% of membership 38% responded to Y2K program survey (have since threatened fines and public exposure of responses/lack of responses) 61% of small businesses say they have no problem 35% of the 1700 respondees have no Y2K plan or think that Y2K is not applicable to them This is after 142 communications published to members 50% said their plan did not include analysis of their technical systems 51% said their plan did not include analysis of 3rd party software or hardware or analysis of internal systems. 61% said their plan did not cover facilities (including power, buildings, etc.) or telecommunications facilities. 56% said corrective actions would be needed but not sure what. 58% did not respond with their plans for remediation, system verification and testing schedules. Cory Hamasaki: He just explained what he has done and what he plans to do over the next 18 months to get his small family business ready for Y2K. He said that it is pretty simple, but it will probably take a total of 1 full-time week of effort (time that he doesn't have) and about $4000 (4-5% of business's annual revenue) to get ready. He said that like so many other small businesses, his family's business is inches away from going under at any moment and Y2K is another added strain. Cory had a good example of the type of testing that is necessary for small businesses in the company cash register (a Casio). He said that he followed the Y2K testing instructions (I didn't catch if the instructions were from Casio or somewhere else). Had to put the register in a maintenance mode by flipping a switch). He inadvertently or otherwise ran a transaction on the register while in maintenance mode which locked up the register cold. After many attempts to reboot through power cycling etc., found three batteries buried deep inside that when removed and left out for a few minutes, cleared the problem. The small business advocates in the audience seemed to appreciate Cory's real world examples of what might need to be done and clamored for more examples/checklists. Cory had a list of equipment that he checked (fax machine, Verifone credit card terminal, etc.) and the results. He has not yet begun the back office work (PCs etc.) that will need to be done. Alan Simpson Alan was very entertaining. He started with the thought that the Senate hall decor reminded him somewhat of a ball room on the Titanic and this meeting was like a seminar on "iceberg avoidance". Telecom switches are beginning to be a frightening problem Very small businesses will be OK, they can use index card systems if all else fails. Medium businesses are biggest risk Is getting 4-5 whistleblowers a week from utilities (telephone, gas, sewage, electric) giving him frightening insight into problems (especially the embedded systems problem) Megaproblems to hit down the road Significant numbers of top management still say Y2K problem is a hoax and a way for Y2K consultants to get rich Dow will plummet 6000 points 23 year old kids on Wall street who graduated 5 minutes ago and received their MBA 3 minutes ago and who are now getting billions of dollars of 401K money a week to invest don't know failure and think that failure is not possible Baby boomers move as a group. Once one turns, they will all turn and it will be a panic The printing presses will not be able to print money fast enough to keep up with demand once the runs on the banks start Joe Public is confused. There are credible software people saying that Y2K is a hoax. No leadership from OMB/White house. Do not need another retired nobody to lead Y2K effort - need no less than Al Gore or Colin Powell. Five stages of Y2K are: Awareness, Panic, <I'm missing one here>, triage, litigation. There was a question/answer session after the presentation. Some points that came out were: Banking regulators are going to force banks to get assurance that company is Y2K ready before loaning new money in the near future. Rick Cowles will testify to congress in a few weeks about electric utilities. Lyn said that you don't want to test your Y2K fixes on active networks because you can bring down production systems with big headaches on how to back out erroneous transactions. Need specific examples of what the 38% of NASD survey responders were doing Would like published list of compliant/non-compliant hardware/software. Everyone seemed to agree that this was not possible because of the lawyers. Could the NASD shut down non-compliant members? Lyn said that what they were doing was telling members that their survey responses will be posted (web site, etc.). Competition will kick in and the members will want to look as good as possible. That's all for now, Mike [Mike is my son who works for a major oil company in Fairfax, VA] -- Harlan _______ Path: news.worldonline.nl!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed.concentric.net!global-news-master From: "Harlan Smith" <hwsmith.nowhere@cris.com> Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000 Subject: WDCY2K attended by Mike Date: 22 Apr 1998 08:30:54 EDT Organization: Paperless Lines: 146 Message-ID: <01bd6df2$a5ac7d20$0e969bcf@CRC3.concentric.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: ts001d02.ftl-fl.concentric.net X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1162 Xref: news.worldonline.nl comp.software.year-2000:36351 -----Original Message----- From: Michael H. Smith Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 1998 6:52 AM To: hwsmith.nowhere@cris.com Subject: WDCY2K report