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

To: Cheeky Kid who wrote (1596)	5/3/1998 4:15:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9818

Sire, World economy is run on 15000 MVS mainframes; more than 500000 S/36-S/38-AS400, Data General, DEC VAXes, and lots of other mini's. In importance PC's simply come after that machine park. A lot of the F500 companies will not make it in time (fixing their critical systems; let alone fix less critical systems). I suggest that you read a lot by some authorities on the subject. Start with Capers Jones, Yourdon (world wide recognised as the guru on systems engineering), Kappelman, Coffou, Feilder, David Hall, Long, Pegalis, Peraino, Alan Simpson, Willian Ulrich, Weinberger and many others. Go to the bookshop, and buy and read some of the following books: - Kappelman - 'Year2000 problem; strategies and solutions for the Fortune 100' - Ullrich and Hayes - 'The year 2000 software crisis; challenge of the century' - Capers Jones - 'The global impact of the Year2000 software problem' (This is some homework ;-)) Only the most recent Operating System versions of these systems are compliant; all others are not. Overwhelmingly, application software written on these platforms have to be made compliant (including tons of C/C++ written modern client/server system). I could go on and on I have ot even touched issues such as supply chain problems, embedded software y2k issues, the Eurodollar draining programmer resources at the same time, large scale integration-testing difficulties, Japan running behind in awareness, and middle management still not coming to terms with the issue. To conclude from a handful succesful tests on PC based stand-alone systems (PC, fax, etc) that there will be no mayor problem, is simply naive IMO. Regards, John

To: Cheeky Kid who wrote (1596)	5/4/1998 11:03:00 AM
From: David Eddy	Respond to of 9818

Sire - I have a better solution, they should by a Brand New P233 or P2 233 or P2 266 computer for under a grand. Businesses will be allot more productive with a fast machine. Not necessarily so... the "modern" stuff tends to be heavily Windoz oriented, which offers a certain problem. When the task is to do serious heads down (or 'phone in your ear') work, GUI screens are a serious productivity inhibitor. Most folks just don't have three hands. So, if you're a small business with a set of systems (A/P, A/R, G/L, inventory, etc.) running character mode DOS, the leap to GUI/Windoz isn't going to be a productivity boost. Fact: in an encyclopedia of desktop (PC, Unix, Amiga, Mac, Radio Shack, etc.) applications there were 3056 publishers (vendors) with 21,000 titles (applications)... granted many of these were non-business. But then factor in those applications that were written by cousin Fred when he was 16 & just learing dBase II in the early '80s.... so let's conservatively say there are at least 10,000 desktop business applications. That's a huge number. Desktop vendors don't keep track of their customers very well. Customers are very lax about upgrading & keeping on current maintenance.... - David