Re: Question: How will the Year 2000 bug impact your work?

In article <32723411.948724@news.iag.net> philb@iag.net (Phil Barnett) writes: >Where I work, we have approx. 25,000 P.C.s, and there is going to be a >huge death toll just before the year 2000. I know of what I speak. We >are spending millions of dollars studying and reacting to this problem >from mainframes to the desktop. Even routers come into the 2000 >compliance picture. >This firmware problem with P.C.s is a big problem. With 25,000 P.C.s, >the cost of just upgrading all the BIOS's if it were possible would be >astronomical. The cost of doing nothing and hoping the P.C. can be >compliant is also astronomical, since fixing the date problems due to >non compliant P.C.s on a daily basis will be extremely labor >intensive. These P.C.s, if allowed to remain in the processing pool >will introduce errors into the data stream. Ultimately, that cannot be >tolerated. >You clearly have no respect for the scope of this problem. >If you are talking about your home PC, yes it is a minor annoyance, >just like a single mosquito. How would you like to be in a PC/LAN >support group with 25,000 mosquitos? Trust me, there would be no fun >days after that. Granted this is a problem, and I see it as a market for a lot of BIOS upgrade chips, perhaps clock replacement boards of some kind; or perhaps just a kick in the pants aftermarket for someone who's been stuck for years with a supply of less-than-current motherboards. Even an older computer tends to remain in-service because if it CAN be pressed into service somewhere it makes more sense than throwing it away. Yet an inability of the system to handle date-rollover correctly will probably push some number of the older units into recycling bins, and the remainder into upgrades. >From our business alone, I predict this number will run into the >thousands. You are probably right.