Interesting Thread Worth Reading

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Last fall, I read the story of a county appraiser who told his local government that they were getting ripped off by a computer firm who wanted $13 million for Y2K repairs. He said he could do it for under $1 million. The commission bought into it and turned him loose.

Today, he reports that he is done, on time and on budget. Is it crap or real? I expect this story to get more coverage. The previous stories are at the bottom of the article.

http://www.naplesnews.com/today/bonita/a58405e.htm

-- Brett (savvydad@aol.com), February 24, 1999

Answers

$13.8 million or just under $1 million?

Obviously someone is lying through their teeth. I gues it's impossible to say right now but when 1/1/00 rolls around someone is going to understand the meaning of the phrase: "You get what you pay for".

I think there will be alot of this Y2K scamming in the rest of the year. That is what is going to give the people preparing on their own time a bad reputaion as con artists and cheats. Another reason to keep your private life PRIVATE.

-- (Lancelot @ tavern link. com), February 24, 1999.


Hmmm! It certainly could feed the hype machine. It is interesting though. This is where I find that the press has also been negligent. There doesn't seem to much investigative reporting as to this thing either way. I for one should really like to know what the hell is going on. Have all these governments and businesses been duped into spending billions needlessly? Oh yes, I realise that many government agencies and business departments will naturally plead for larger budgets in order to seize upon the opportunity to update outdated systems. However, this story indicates the possibility of widespread greed and duping that is unprecedented.

What I find surprising is that what to me appears to be one of the biggest stories of the century there really is no investigative reporting going on either way. If this problem has been blown way out of proportion and governments and businesses have been duped into spending billions and allowing countless person hours to be thrown at this problem then it is a global scam beyond anything we have ever witnessed. What a story that would be!

-- Anon (anon@abc.com), February 24, 1999.


I think it's about time Consumer Reports got to work on this whole scene of remediation and testing. A list of firms who refused to cooperate with them would be interesting too....

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), February 24, 1999.

A lot of fur will still be flying after the Y2K dust settles.

Two words: Outside verification.

You just have to know that mega corporations would NOT be spending the $$ they are without investigating the key "need" for those expense line items. It's not a "standard" investment in the classic sense which has a predictable return on investment. CEO's could get fired over that kind of pocket change.

Staying in business, however, has significant competitive advantages.

The benefits outweigh bankruptcy.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), February 24, 1999.


Brett,

Hard to say without doing an assessment of problems and the method used to resolve. For instance in some cases, if the programs don't bomb with 00, you could in theory leave well enough alone and have SOP's (Standard Operationg Procedures) for staff 'manually window' data to resolve ambiguity. Not clean, not pretty, and not recommended but it will be done somewhere... We'd need to know what this guy delivered.

All solutions are not created equal. Because it's a unit of government whose records could date from 1700's forward, the consultant probably planned on expansion of all dates to full 4 digit years. That would be a conscientious longterm solution. And that solution would involve a lot more than just windowing within program logic.

Diane,

What you say is valid for business environment but the tread originally references local government. Many of these are staffed by petty power hungry over inflated egos who primary goal is to trounce on individual rights in the name of conformity while building private fiefdoms. Staffed by people who never learned the meaning of common sense, who, in the words of my esteemed mayor, need to teach people to jump through hoops. They will think nothing of legislating Y2K immunity for themselves and then will wring their hands in agony (wink , wink) whild taxing you to fix their mistakes (and not delivering the services they previously taxed your for.) These are the people who're in training for bigger and better positions - practice saying "I didn't inhale", "We did't have sex". What Brett is inquiring about is the going ons at the training ground for short sighted, politically correct, politicians.

Where have all the statesmen gone, Long time passing....

jh

-- john hebert (jt_hebert@hotmail.com), February 25, 1999.



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