Oh dear, one step forward and three steps back... yet more advertising all dressed up and ready to pretend to be news... From Bangor (Maine) News:

http://www.bangornews.com/News/981008mainegroupofferssolu.html

My favorite quote from this article:

"Rodrigue stressed the need for his program to reach companies by June 1999 so they have a chance to implement it in time for the new year"

This is not to say that the tool mentioned (Conversion 2000) would not be of some use to certain specific companies but it is far from (and I quote) "proof that the Year 2000 computer problem can be solved".

Among the tool's touted features: "links to information about small-business loans to assist with Year 2000 costs".

Perhaps most revealing was "Rodrigue urged the senators to get the rest of the nation involved and to help the groups find additional funding. To bring the program to the more than 600 manufacturers in Maine, the cost would be $800,000 to $1 million, he said."

Arnie

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), October 08, 1998

Answers

Why sure you can fix everything with one small tool! All of us people doing repair work are just hyping it to make tons of money.

I got the same feeling from this that I did today when one of our clients called us and said they didn't want our help in correcting their Year 2000 problems (which they already are aware of). It seems that a two person "computer center" in a nearby town called and told them they could test, repair, replace, or patch, and verify their systems and office for a total of 4 hours of labor. Now I know this is a small client with only a small LAN; but please, you can't even interview the client to determine what they're doing and how they use their system in 4 hours. I guess we must be operating at a low skill level if we're so slow!

This really bothers me when you consider the fact that most of the work we've performed for small business (as it relates to Y2K) has been at an average of 1/2 our normal rate. It seems we had the stupid idea that this was important enough to try and get as many people as possible working on the problem. Anybody else seen this with small business?

-- Greg Sugg (gregsugg@bbnp.com), October 08, 1998.

Wach out, a lot (not all, but a lot) of that kind of program is just BIOS test, Windows "version" detector, type of thing with a link to the sba web site.

So the owner gets a report saying he needs to replace the computer (BIOS old), replace Windows 3.1, or replace Windows 95 (?) with the programmer's favorte upgrade ($), and then think he's Y2K compliant.

Some others may test for versions of Excel, Lotus, accounting, Word, etc. and report older versions not certified okay. Thay can't look at the appications and spreadsheets written "on top" of those applications.

He might be compliant, and his computer may boot up, but his other programs, his PBX, his applications, and his venders and suppliers may fail.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 08, 1998.

And don't forget routers, hubs and ISDN or T1 modems. They all have to be checked. If checking servers don't forget to check the mirror box - some may have problems. And what about the building HVAC controls?

Reminds me of the fellow who taught me MS Visual Foxpro. He had a client (small business - about 150 or 200K a year) who described a payroll and accounting system in vast detail while he took notes, laid out exactly what she would require in every detail - probably about 10K of custom programming - and at the very end after about 4 hours of work told him if it would cost more than $100 or so to forget it as she could buy a copy of Quicken for that. Oh My.

Frankly, the small guys will realize they have a problem about the 3rd of April next year, assuming New York has enough trouble to make some headlines. Then they will probably mess it up unless an auditor or some such checks them for certification and gives them a short time to fix the problems he finds. Then they will be eager to hire anyone to fix it at any price. If you want to make a lot of money next year just spread your cards around all the small businesses in your area - but you will probably be working 24/7.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), October 09, 1998.