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Technology Stocks : Y2k Denial on SI -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Hauser who wrote (71)	7/16/1998 2:12:00 PM
From: firstman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 151

Too extreme? Two thirds of all firms have no testing program! "If You Test, You're in the Minority For most companies, unfortunately, testing is at best a rusty skill set. The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh estimates that 67 percent of organizations have no formal Y2K testing program in place. Even the praiseworthy 33 percent are finding Y2K testing to be knottier and more problematic than anything they've done before. "Dates are just so all-encompassing that when you start messing with them, every aspect of the system-and all the interrelationships between systems-needs to be tested," says Albert Kern, an assistant vice president and the Y2K project leader at Boston's Commercial Union Insurance. To add to the burden of making sure all systems are" cio.com But ultimately this point seems moot, the idea of being able to fix the problem is a charade. Y2K is being likened to a computer version of Ebola. As a majority of small businesses and much of governments mainframes will not meet compliance, or are simply ignoring it, they are still part of the worldwide network. Unfortunately, this means that any noncompliant data that is imported will corrupt the compliant system's data. Interface Issues While most policy-makers have focused on creating awareness and ensuring compliance, most agencies have not addressed the problem of interfaces, or how communications with the outside world will affect compliant systems. What happens when systems are linked and defects are passed over networks? "You may have a system in which you address the problem, but that system also talks to five or six or several hundred systems, and they may be passing you bad data which you think is good data, and if you process [that data, it] will give you a bad answer on your machine,'' said Terry Zagar, chief scientist for BDM Federal Inc. fcw.com Small firms ignore Y2K bug Small businesses are being warned that they'll lose business if they continue to ignore the Year 2000 computer problem. "Small companies just do not have the luxury to let this slip," says Eugene Carlson, associate administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA). "This is a non-negotiable deadline." Even though 80% of companies employing fewer than 100 people are aware of the issue, half don't plan to address it, a Wells Fargo Bank survey of 500 companies in April said. usatoday.com:80/life/cyber/tech/ctd062.htm firstman