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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul V. who wrote (20461)	6/16/1998 9:41:00 PM
From: Gottfried	Respond to of 70976

Paul, you asked >Will the Y2K problem a positive or negative for AMAT?< Don't know. But here are a few things that might happen: 1. airplanes will fly empty on Jan 1.2000 2. some investors will go to 100% cash in Dec 1999 3. Market volume will be less than half of normal on the first trading day of 2000. 4. Brian will leave the thread because he's rich from all the 25 cent contributions. GM <G> Yes, I went sailing in June.

To: Paul V. who wrote (20461)	6/16/1998 9:49:00 PM
From: Katherine Derbyshire	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

>>Does anyone on this site have ideas how the Y2K problem will impact AMAT and the SEMI's. Is the Y2K problem strickly a software problem or is it also a hardware problem? Will the Y2K problem a positive or negative for AMAT?<< Y2K is strictly a software problem in that a gas valve doesn't care what year it is. However, most semi equipment is heavily overlayed with software, creating some exposure. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that companies dealing with fab automation (robots, control software, etc) have the most Y2K exposure, and companies dealing with non-intelligent components (cassettes, some valves, etc) have the least. Everyone else is on a continuum. For any company, Y2K is a potential problem if they have the bug and it causes customers to lose product, but a potential opportunity if they've fixed the problem and their competitors haven't. Katherine