August 17, 1998, Issue: 696

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Section: Behind The News

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Beyond The Next 500 Days

John Eckhouse

Did you ever wonder why you start hearing so much about November elections in the dog days of August? It's because politicians begin their annual recess every year about this time and rush home to glad-hand voters at all the county fairs, barbecues, and church picnics they can, literally, stomach.

That's one mystery solved, but here's another: Why are we hearing so much about the year 2000 problem now, when savvy IT professionals have been aware of-and dealing with-the situation for years? It may be that we in the media love round numbers-and the countdown to Jan. 1, 2000, hits 500 days this week.

With the deadline for solutions looming, how are things going? On the positive side, an InformationWeek Research Priorities survey of 250 IT executives with year 2000 responsibility shows that, on average, they've evaluated 86% of their custom applications for signs of trouble. But only 59% of those apps are in compliance so far. That means there's an awful lot of work left to be done in a short period of time.

To cope, IT shops are throwing money at the problem-a lot of money. The typical organization is spending 25% of its IT budget on year 2000 solutions, including code evaluation, remediation, patching, testing, and implementation. That spending figure includes software, hardware, infrastructure, staff salaries, and consultants. Small and large companies alike are spending approximately the same percentage of their IT budget on year 2000 work.

Don't look for IT spending to decline after all the year 2000 work is finished. Only 15% of the IT managers expect their budgets to drop starting in 2000. The majority, 50%, say budgets are likely to stay about the same. The remaining 35% predict they'll actually increase IT spending after all the year 2000 work is out of the way.

Have you started planning beyond the next 500 days? Let us know at the address below.

John Eckhouse

Senior Editor/Research

jeckhous@cmp.com