IBM/Lotus is already starting to feel it a bit: Y2K Stalls Lotus Notes R5

Some organizations have already frozen all system changes as of March 1, others plan to freeze by July 1, and still others by October 1. No matter when they decide to "lock everything down", the cumulative effect on many vendors' revenues in 3Q and 4Q will not be positive at all. Most of those organizations quoted don't plan to restart development until the "Spring Thaw" in March, 2000. Hate to be in sales at a major systems vendor later this year...

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), June 21, 1999

Answers

Companies typically freeze development for certain periods all the time. My local phone company, for example, typically doesn't allow new changes to be implemented from Sept - Feb because they don't want problems appearing. Our systems department puts freezes in place (eg. 1 month prior to major upgrades) to prevent work being overwritten and having to be redone at a later time...

-- So What? (thats@nothing.new), June 21, 1999.

I'm well aware that a freeze is SOP in development; my point was the size and timing of the Y2K freeze. Should I infer from your question that you see little or no impact to vendor revenues if there's a wide-spread 6-9 month freeze on acquisition and deployment?

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), June 21, 1999.

So What?

This is so typical of the mentality that got us into this in the first place. Think think think think, try it you might like it.

-- Will (sibola@hotmail.com), June 21, 1999.

1) To quote the article: "Lotus is downplaying the problem, claiming that it has seen no signs of Y2K affecting its revenue or sales." So no, I don't see a major impact of freezes on revenue. It's a typical thing vendors would encounter...

2) What is typical of a mentality that left Y2K fixes till late? Thinking that software implementations need to be regualted to minimize the impact to business at critical times?

BTW - as a entry level programmer 10 years ago I initiated a number of the database & program changes to our old mainframe system. It's a very simple fix...

Course our entire system has been rewritten since that Y2K problem was taken care of.

-- So What? (thats@nothing.new), June 22, 1999.

Mac,

Yep, every desktop computer company except Apple is looking at this next quarter with a lot of worry and the market is even starting to notice. A whole lot of talk about it on CNBC this week already.

This scenario along with the deeper and more agressive flight to quality happening at the same time = not good for the economy or jobs, IMHO.

Mike ===============================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), June 22, 1999.