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To: ztect who wrote (1051)	11/19/1998 1:46:00 AM
From: TENNET	Respond to of 1754

PC Y2K fix market to heat up says article: --------- San Francisco SPG Conference, September 23-25 PART 2: Continuation of GIGA presentation This is the second of two reports on "Year 2000 Project Strategies for Small and Mid-Sized Companies," a start-to-finish Year 2000 plan for corporate project managers, presented by Ann Coffou and Stephanie Moore of Giga Information Group. During their presentation at the San Francisco SPG Conference, Moore noted that Y2K problems with PCs are rapidly emerging as an area of major concern for project managers. PC issues were pushed to the back burner last year, because mainframe millennium bug problems seemed much more important. But now companies are surprised to find many critical systems residing on PCs. Moore said managing a PC conversion can be more difficult than converting a billion lines of COBOL code, in part because most companies have a terrible inventory of their PC hardware and software. She told of one company who told their vendor they needed site licenses for 16,000 machines. When the vendor scanned the networks in the company, they found 22,000 PCs. Moore used herself as another example of how widespread the PC problem is. She told the audience about her desktop computer at work and her laptop she travels with, both owned by GIGA. But she also has a laptop of her own in her home office, which she uses to access everything at GIGA. Nobody at GIGA was aware she had it or what software was on it. That computer of hers could re-introduce problems in applications that have been fixed. Thousands of spreadsheets have been "inherited" by companies whose employees may use them for expense accounts, attendance and hundreds of other minor but useful business applications. But those inherited programs can cause trouble if companies allow their employees to continue using them. So don't forget home and remote workers. Dealing with such employees and their home systems is resource-intensive work and without careful and redundant checks, users can easily reintroduce programs that had been deleted in company offices because they were not Y2K compliant. End users not only need to be taught awareness, but they need to be brought into the whole Y2K process. They also need to know they are accountable for keeping their machine and their network compliant, Moore said, and that there will be consequences for backsliding. She recommended taking a new inventory at least every month, to make sure the new rules are being followed. There isn't enough time left to introduce a system of asset management here, but taking frequent inventories will provide the framework for a system after 2000 that will be much better then the unchecked and uncontrolled proliferation of PCs that many companies now have. The good news about distributed computer systems (PCs) is that second-generation Y2K tools now available are much better than the first ones to come out, even though there still is no "silver bullet". The new tools will scan systems and report on the hardware and software on the network, and fix the BIOS. Moore recommended several companies, and told the audience to avoid freeware, because it varies in quality and, without a contractual agreement, you can't go back to the maker in case of trouble.