David Eddy on "We're replacing our systems"

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If you haven't read the breif column by David Eddy on the "we're replacing all our systems" argument, it's worth reading (from the Westergaard site):

http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/Techcorner/DE/de9902.htm



-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), January 13, 1999

Answers

First, fix the close blockquote tag...

Next, sorry BigDog. I see you and I posted our links to the same article about the same time

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), January 13, 1999.

My husband works for a S & P 500 company that appears to be well ahead of most of its peer companies for Y2K. They are replacing their manfg payroll systems. However, they need to "tweek it" with internally written software in order to make it fit their specific needs. The 1st time they tested the mfg interface, it crashed. Why? Because the new software did not work. When they tried running parallel testing for the acctg software, they could not produce reports. Why? Becuase the new software did not work. Sound familiar to any of you? I bet it does. I get the impression that David Eddy knows what he's talking about.

-- Sue (conibear@gateway.net), January 13, 1999.

No problem, Arnie, great minds bark alike. I should have said that the reason an 80% probability for Y2K > 7, as amply demonstrated by Eddy's article alone, becomes 100% is, uh, those darn little embedded systems.

I hate for this to sound patronizing, because I'm definitely of the opinion that common sense is the basic prerequisite for GIs, but those who have worked with "real systems" (not PC or even UNIX stuff) and understand their complexity (Hamasaki notably) experience the upcoming train wreck as though they're watching a done deal in slow motion.

It's all so infuriatingly simple. The train wreck trajectory began in 1995 when it could have been stopped. But the engineers didn't begin until 1997 or 1998. It's too late. "Replacing systems" so they do that little thing we'd like (ie, they "run") is a five to 10 year process. Get it (GI)?

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), January 13, 1999.


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