y2k essays

y2k essays The year 2000 represents more than just an end to the 1900s. For computers worldwide, it can mean major problem. When software for many of the business computers in use today was in development, many programmers tried to save space by programming computers only to deal with years in the 20th century. Today, though, many computer users discover problems anytime they are dealing with a date that falls after the next turn-of-the-century. When calculations involving the year 2000 or after come up on the computer screen, many computers only read 00 and not know the correct date. They malfunction or fail. "The looming prospect of disabled computer systems and paralyzed enterprises around the world makes the year 2000 one of the most critical and universal challenges to ever face the IT industry," the magazine Managing Office Technology reported in December 1997 ( Marcoccio and Matthew, online). Talking of GartnerGroup research, it added, "While the date change crisis has achieved maxi mum awareness, 30 percent of all companies worldwide have not yet started on any Year 2000 compliancy efforts, and 40 percent have not progressed to a point where they will be certain not to encounter significant mission-critical failures by 2000." Having the most problems are health, care, education, government agencies and small and medium-sized companies (Marcoccio, online, 1999)Large companies seem to be the farthest along, perhaps because they have the greatest resources from which to pull money and help. The leading large company industry is insurance, with financial services trailing just slightly, and banking behind that. Yet many businesses have been hard at work trying to update their source code, sometimes by reprogramming and sometimes by replacing rather than reprogramming software. Sometimes they must replace with a vendor package, retire the application, or even get rid of the entire business prospect. Managing Offi ...