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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Mansfield who wrote (3643)	2/4/1999 1:59:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9818

'SUN MICROSYSTEMS HEAD ADVISES COMPUTER STOCKPILING [news] The domestic computer industry faces a terrible problem: it needs parts from Asia, and Asia is up to three years behind the United States on Y2K repairs. To people who understand the Y2K problem, that means Asia is D.O.A. when the new millennium arrives. Expect massive, widespread disruptions in most sectors. Will it interfere with the computer parts industry? Without question. Scott McNealy, head of Sun Microsystems, isn't following the standard spin line: he tells people to stockpile computer parts. More specifically, he says, "We think Asia is disastrously behind in terms of getting caught up. People are talking about stockpiling cash, water and can goods. Given what I, and everybody else in the computer industry know about Asia, it might not be a bad idea to stockpile some computers for the next millennium." Bill Gates, though, wasn't overly concerned about Y2K. Perhaps that's because Microsoft doesn't rely on Asia in order to continue cranking out software. You can stamp a CD-ROM anywhere. Story: sunday-times.co.uk [commentary] McNealy is right, of course, as anybody familiar with Asia can tell you. We've done a lot of research in Asia, interviewing local business people in Taiwan and Hong Kong, watching the news services throughout Asia for Y2K items: the bottom line is that Asia is just now beginning to move into the awareness phase on Y2K. Everyday people haven't even heard about it, and the ones that hear about it almost immediately scoff at the notion that disruptions might occur. It's almost exactly the situation we saw here in the United States in late 1996. ASIA IS VULNERABLE In fact, Asia is far more vulnerable than the United States on Y2K issues. It's not only the late factor at work here, although that is certainly a major factor. It's also the fact that 95% of the software in Asia is pirated, including the software that runs the Asian governments and infrastructures. Because the software is pirated, it will be impossible for these countries to get technical support or software updates. They'll have to wait for the fixed version of the software to hit the pirate market before they can update their computers. Software piracy varies widely among Asian countries. From the worst offenders to the best: Indonesia Vietnam China Korea Hong Kong Taiwan Japan That means nearly all the software in Indonesia is pirated, but a good portion of the software in Taiwan and Japan is legitimate. China is the major factor here: its piracy rate is extremely high, and yet the world depends greatly on exports from China. In the computer industry, China / Hong Kong supplies motherboards, interface cards, computer cases and power supplies, keyboards, and plenty of chips used in other parts. Korea is best known for RAM chips, Taiwan for scanners, mice, monitors, power supplies, and cases, and Japan for displays, CD-ROM drives, disk drives, hard drives, and especially LCD modules. What are the odds that all these countries will be operating "as usual" in January of 2000? Virtually none. There's no question here: the computer industry is going to suffer from Y2K. There will be a severe supply pipeline problem, and the computer mail order and retail industry will experience its own recession until supplies can get back on-line. ... y2knewswire.com