Retrospective analyses of Y2K

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Douglass Carmichael <doug () dougcarmichael com>
Date: May 31, 2006 1:55:45 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] Retrospective analyses of Y2K

Dave,

I am in fact working on an article. My view is that y2k was real, it was
well handled with hard work inside organizations,  and increased IT  
spending
in 98-99 used IT budgets for 2000-2001 and, since it was spent early,  
led
the slowing down in the IT economy starting in Jan 2000, the NASDAQ  
was down
in feb and the Dow in March (but blamed later on Bush2).

I saw first hand heroic efforts inside organizations, and saw  
companies turn
off systems and bring them back on line slowly over weeks or even months
after jan 1. Huge amounts of new equipment and software, and inventories
done well for the first time, were purchased,  mostly in 99.

The reason it is important is because it was a big deal well handled and
then ignored - repressed. It was considered wimpy to have a y2k  
problem. In
one case I saw directly, declining profit, based on increased y2k IT  
costs,
was blamed on Asian financial problems.

It worked well because responsibility was internal to organizations and
people were given responsibility to fix it, or in same cases publically
pretend it was fixed.

Most techno-social crisis, like global warming, are not internal, so  
no real
responsibility can be delegated. This is the real lesson of y2k.

The real crisis of our time - the use of tech to concentrate wealth and
create arms sales - is avoided, and avoiding serious discussion of  
y2k is
just part of the general theme of avoiding the obvious we could learn  
from,
and have to face.

Love to discuss these ideas and others...

doug

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 10:28 AM
To: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: [IP] Retrospective analyses of Y2K



Begin forwarded message:

From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk>
Date: May 31, 2006 9:59:40 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Retrospective analyses of Y2K

Dave:

This is a query posed by a colleague, that you might wish IP to have  
a go at
answering:

> Has there been any respectable retrospective analysis of Y2K, from a
> technical, social, economic or any other viewpoint? Or is there only
> anecdote?
>
> Please let me know if you are aware of anything that has been
> published, or is in preparation.

Cheers

Brian
--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon  
Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/


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