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(Online News, 10/07/99 04:42 PM)

Study: 50% of major firms plan Y2K system freezes

By Thomas Hoffman

Half of the companies responding to a recent survey indicated that they are imposing a year 2000 "freeze" on installing new systems or enhancing old ones.

The study of 96 companies was conducted by Cutter Consortium, a research firm in Arlington, Mass.

According to Ed Yourdon, chairman of Cutter Consortium, half of the firms polled have already imposed an enterprisewide lockdown or are planning to begin one soon that will carry through year's end. The purpose is to keep corporate computer environments year-2000-ready by not introducing any changes to existing software code or hardware. Another 36% weren't planning to impose a systems freeze, while 15% of respondents said they were unsure of their plans.

Firms in the study had an average IT budget of $38.2 million and IT staff of 816 people.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Y2KOK.ORG), October 07, 1999

Answers

to follow up on this item: last week, I conducted an informal "show of hands" survey of an audience of approx 400 people attending QAI's National Software Testing Conference, in Orlando. Approx 80% indicated that their company was going to impose a Y2K freeze.

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (HumptyDumptyY2K@yourdon.com), October 07, 1999.

Ed --

Has your estimate on overall U.S. corporate readiness changed at all over the past six months (not looking for a specific number here)?

Also, do you look for a rapid, visible set of problems for corporations that are NOT ready (ie, Jan-Feb) or deferred public problem visibility (Mar-Apr) or ???

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), October 07, 1999.

* * * 19991007 Thursday

At past Y2K client projects I have worked on (mainframes and PC/Networks), there was, for all intents and purposes, a software "freeze": No new software unless certified (IN-HOUSE TESTED - NO LETTERS!) Y2K compliant.

Considering that as of March 1999, 70% of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software was--still is?--NOT Y2K COMPLIANT, I'd say there has been a virtual "freeze."

Micro-Shaft is still releasing Y2K patches to operating systems and applications; enough to warrant a CD-ROM format. MS still does not have a Y2K compliant operating system available. Probably never will! What does this fact alone say about the veracity of business and government claims to Y2K compliance... er, oops... readiness? The only sure scenario these morons could be "ready" for is abject Y2K failure/bankruptcy!

"Ready" means pre-Y2K golden parachutes for the idiots that promulgated the tragedy. The consoling irony, however, is that their precious "golden parachutes" will turn into "golden showers"--if you know what I mean--of poetic Y2K justice.

You could throw all the money and people in the world at existing Y2K problems and IT CANNOT BE FIXED!

Regards, Bob Mangus

* * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus1@yahoo.com), October 07, 1999.

I work for one of them - frozen Oct - Jan : we went live with SAP in July and now all the consultants are gone - skeleton crew and in a maintenance mode, however, to make up for all the missing consultants and the knowledge that left with them - the shop is quickly moving to a methodology I am calling JITP (Just In Time Programming) Not a pretty picture (or future) - heard yesterday that the Board is deciding how to handle the rollover, they say they guess they will turn it all off and then see if it comes back up after rollover - to my knowledge, no technical input to this group - but I get lots of Internet time at work

-- BH (silentvoice@pobox.com), October 07, 1999.

BigDog,

My own estimate of corporate Y2K readiness has not changed. As you well know, there has been a blizzard of PR reports and surveys over the past several weeks and months -- some good, and some bad. But I don't think much has changed, in terms of the "basics," the possible exception being that Mr. Koskinen et al have been so successful at calming fears that the small/medium businesses have gone sound asleep.

As for how all of this will play out on 1/1/2000 ... who knows? We can all guess, but the reality is that nobody knows. I would be amazed if we didn't have at least one or two MAJOR embedded systm failures that caused injury or death ... and then I think the business disruptions will go on for months. Hmmm... I seem to remember writing an essay about that "A Year of Disruptions, A Decade of Depression" -- and my views on that have not changed, either.

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (HumptyDumptyY2K@yourdon.com), October 08, 1999.