Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Jim who wrote (5511)	4/13/1999 5:51:00 PM
From: Christine Traut	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9818

Jim: This is a very legitimate question. My point of view about software reliability is that it should work as advertised. As a veteran of many software projects, from mainframes to PCs, I can tell you that most software errors are not obvious. Just as most Y2K problems won't show up until someone discovers that their property taxes have been ripped from their banking accounts! IBM, Novell, Oracle and other industry leaders are fixing all of their current products to eliminate the Y2K design issues that wouldn't be obvious to you or me if we were 'just checking' our applications. IBM had all of their major products fixed in the middle of last year. They then submitted them to independent Y2K compliance verification by the ITAA. You can see the list of independently tested products on ITAA's web site. Microsoft has no intention of participating in any independent verification. They'll have a reason....I have my suspicions. My moral outrage is that Microsoft's monopoly, on top of their very late start on Y2K compliance, is going to cost all of us. It's not as though we have a real choice if it turns out that there are nasty bugs that weren't obvious to you in your test. Perhaps all of your MSFT applications will work fine. I hope that they do. But I guarantee you that MSFT's position of keeping some of their products at 'compliant with minor issues' is going to cause problems with other vendors applications. If Intuit or some other company suddenly has problems because of the way Microsoft has patched Windows 95 - do you think that Bill Gates will take responsibility? As long as we put our trust in Microsoft looking after our interests, we are going to have more and more unstable software. One woman's strong opinion. Christine

To: Jim who wrote (5511)	4/13/1999 10:45:00 PM
From: David Eddy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9818

Jim - I changed my computer to y2000 and all my MS applications worked fine. Point of order.. MSFT really doesn't make applications. They make tools. Applications are things like accounting systems that run on top of MSFT tools. A catalog of desktop applications list 3,000+ vendors and 21,000 products. This obviously totally ignores ALL the stuff written in languages such as xBase, Paradox, FoxPro, Revelation, AlphaFour, ad nauseum. I will certainly conceed that many operations, large & small, have written mission critical applications in spreadsheets. My two cents is that MSFT is going to get majorly hammered by their continued stonewalling of Y2K. Man in the street does know, nor should he know the difference between an operating system & accounts receivable. - David