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Technology Stocks : IBM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan Spillane who wrote (4530)	1/22/1999 12:58:00 PM
From: Jim Koch	Respond to of 8218

Actually, IBM has a very good idea of how much revenue is directly tied to Y2K remediation projects. Sold out means that the resources IBM have allocated through its Y2K Practice have been completely committed to selected customers and projects. They could have booked much more business if they had chosen to do so, they did not. Although the Y2K business is an anomaly, it will not end when the year 2000 arrives. In addition, as clients get over the Y2K hump, they will begin to concentrate on their mission critical applications such as E-Business. IBM is uniquely positioned to dominate this marketplace. They have an extremely strong backlog of services business that is only constrained by the number of qualified people they can hire and the projects they chose to accept.

To: Dan Spillane who wrote (4530)	1/22/1999 5:12:00 PM
From: Arrow Hd.	Respond to of 8218

IBM has been working on Y2K projects for the past couple of years. My point is that when IBM downsized in the early 90s a lot of the older folks who could do the remediation work left. The service related population is heavily weighted towards younger people and the thrust is E@Commerce, outsourcing, and so on. IBM had to no-bid many large Y2K remediation bids since they simply didnt have the skills and could not get them. I would offer an opposite view that directing IT dollars to Y2K projects negatively affected IBM since it delayed projects which IBM could win with its current personnel. But this is very hard to quantify and there are scenarios on both sides of this issue to support either argument. In general, I believe that once we are beyond the Y2K issue, hopefully in second quarter of 2000, the technology industry will again boom as the focus shifts to enhancing, adding and implementing instead of fixing.