There is an article in Computerworld at:

http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/all/9811307F1A

which details parts of the Computer Sciences Corporation's annual survey of information technology executives. While integrating computer systems to become more technologically competitive is given as the top priority of utility CIO's, the Year 2000 problem is not even mentioned on their list of critical issues.

I found one part of this article which struck a chord with what I have seen expressed in electric utility 10Q's: "... he also noted that systems involved in the generation and distribution of power typically aren't under the CIO's control. Utility IT executives, for the most part, are responsible for back-office systems and administrative systems exclusively."

Quite a few of the electric utility 10Q's Year 2000 statements begin with an explanation of how the utility has recently upgraded software systems, or purchased new office technology to facilitate their customer service and billing. These advances are generally described quite proudly, and customer service/billing systems are way ahead in being fixed. In comparison, other details of generating, distribution, and embedded systems investigations often take a back burner in the statement. It would appear that not only were software business systems the first to be part of any Y2K awareness, an information disconnect is also going on internally in corporations.

Does this explain in part why the public is so frustrated by the lack of Y2K info available? If utility CIO's are focused on office software and deregulation business issues, who is minding the store in regards to overall Y2K issues? If any utility CIO's happen to be reading this, I would like to point out something which seems quite obvious to me: If you're interested in pleasing customers and retaining market share, then the reliable generation and distribution of electricity should be THE PRIME concern. If you care about customer "service", the service we most want is absolute assurance no Y2K problems will affect the continued flow of electricity or clean water. Worry about the billing after you're positive you'll have something to bill for!

This will make this post a long one, but here's another interesting section from the actual survey:

"Most I/T executives around the world indicated they were concerned about the lack of their department's contribution to the effectiveness of their companies. In fact, almost 66 percent of this year's respondents felt the users of technology within their companies would rate the overall effectiveness of information systems only as average or acceptable, rather than good to excellent. This is a significant increase from 1996 when 55 percent felt the information systems of their companies would be viewed only as average or adequate by users."

"This shows that from the I/T executives' perspective, things are not improving but are getting worse," Honeycutt pointed out. "CIOs are frustrated at the slow pace of getting this important strategic corporate resource aligned with the business strategies of their companies."

If executives are frustrated with the slow pace of improving information systems irregardless of Y2K, that doesn't increase my optimism any about the speed of Year 2000 remediation.

-- Anonymous, December 26, 1998

Answers

Are IT execs and programmers savvy re embedded systems? My experience with programmers in the business community tells me that that programmers have a very limited knowledge of embedded systems. In recent discussions with 4 programmers about y2k, I acted dumb and had them tell me about "this embedded system problem". All four were clueless. This is not surprising because embedded systems are handled by hardware engineers, which, is a totally different world than most software types experience. The very fact that embedded system remediation is under the direction of some IT execs is testimony to the misunderstanding of the embedded system problem.

-- Anonymous, December 26, 1998

Bonnie,

I don't think the corporate utility lawyers will allow the CIO's to list Y2K as a top corporate priority. To do so could possibly add fodder in a lawsuit. I've noticed that no major companies are listing Y2K as a top priority. I suspect thier lawyers are responsible for this course of action.

Bill Watt

-- Anonymous, December 27, 1998