Business: Software Magazine Y2K Special, October 1997: IT Roundtable

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Y2K Warriors: The View From the Trenches

(An interesting discussion with people working with big businesses that've been dealing with the year 2000 problem for some time now. While the companies they're talking about are relatively huge, the discussion points up how the "basic priniciples of y2k remediation" are being worked with among people who have a lot at stake and take the problem very seriously.)

The Year 2000 software crisis affects everyone, from large companies with millions of lines of code to government agencies to service providers with millions of clients. Addressing this problem requires a combination of technical, managerial, and political skills. Software Magazine Editor-in-Chief Patrick Porter recently discussed Year 2000 issues during a roundtable with information executives from some of the nation's leading banks, insurance companies, software vendors, and Year 2000 consultancies. The participants were:

(Sample questions)

Software: When I talk to practitioners who are spending millions of dollars on their Year 2000 conversions, it seems like a really big deal. But in a recent poll of 700 CIOs, they said it's not a big problem and is being blown out of proportion. Either there's a lot of denial going on, or people are playing it down because they're embarrassed that they have this problem and don't know how to explain it to their business managers.

Software:Let's talk about the supply chain. It's all well and good to get your own company to Year 2000 perfection, but what if your supply chain has 2,000 vendors?

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-- Bill (billdale@lakesnet.net), March 15, 1998


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