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To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (12188)	5/26/1998 3:52:00 PM
From: Giraffe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116834

from the Sunday Times May 24 1998 BUSINESS NEWS America poaches bug busters David Parsley BRITAIN's leading millennium-bug-busters are being lured to America by leading companies with offers of free flights on Concorde every weekend and lucrative salary packages, including bonuses and share options. American firms are spending millions on ensuring they have the best brains the world can offer to tackle the year 2000 timebomb. The news comes as Tony Blair still searches for his first soldier in an army of 20,000 bug-busters. Blair launched the "army" at the end of March but the Department of Trade and Industry has only just begun sending application forms to those hoping for the œ1,300 grant to become one of the millennium fixers. A survey commissioned by The Sunday Times and compiled by Software Research, an information-technology research house, reveals that America is short of as many as 340,000 millennium programmers while Britain is between 20,000 and 30,000 short. But American companies are reducing their staff shortages at a far greater rate than their British counterparts, by raiding them for staff, offering programmers up to œ5,000 a day, and ensuring they can take Concorde flights home every weekend to see their families. Edward Yardeni, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell's New York economist, said: "America is probably going to be the top dog with all the money drawing in all the resources and leaving others to suffer. But even this is bad for the US because the problem is a global one, not one of individual countries." Yardeni, who advises Congress on the bug, pointed to Bank of America as an example of where cash is being used to lure top brains. Last week the bank said it was dedicating $350m (œ218m) to the problem, with almost a third being used for programmers' ever-increasing salaries. ICL, Britain's leading computer-services group, has lost two senior staff to Gartner Group, its American rival. The millennium problem has arisen because many computer systems use only two digits, not four, for dating purposes. When the year changes from 99 to 00, experts say many applications will crash or create indecipherable data. Richard Coppel, chief executive of Prove It 2000, returned from America last week and was horrified by what he discovered. "While America appears to be behind the UK in making people aware of the problem they are beginning to use their financial muscle to catch up and poach our best programmers," he said. "We are on the verge of another brain-drain of Britain's greatest minds." Mark Taylor, Microsoft's director of consulting, said: "The days of using sticks to make programmers work are over. Firms have to use carrots and offer the sort of terms and conditions that are seeing dramatic increases in salaries, bonuses and share options." The Corporate PC Millennium Report is available from Software Research for œ395. Phone 01491 411111

To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (12188)	5/26/1998 6:02:00 PM
From: bobby beara	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 116834

We should bounce from here, this was the capitulation day I was looking for, but stronger than I thought. The strength of the bounce will determine whether we are in a bull market or we have one more leg down to 52 a lot of t/a ers are calling for. I was buying mining shares today. Looking at the Mexican Peso chart, just broke out of a 4th wave triangle and is soaring to a fifth wave top. Latin America is next in the FIATSCO wave. CRB may have had a capitulation day and could get a bounce across the board on commodities. We'll see if Gold decouples. I believe we have the start of a descent correction going and possibly the start of the first leg of the big kahuna. bwdik, bb