Letters to the Editor.

Dealing With Y2K Head-On

I am somewhat concerned that your readers may accept the comments of reader Phil Howitt in the September "Letters to the Editor" ("Y2K: Not The End Of The World As We Know It," page 4) as the final word on dealing with Year 2000 issues. While his advice might have some applicability for individuals in their homes, it is dangerous to expect that a business can take the same attitude without putting itself at risk, both operationally and legally.

Many others have already commented on the potential for business disruptions, but it also has been determined that the officers of a corporation have a fiduciary responsibility to take all reasonable measures to protect the integrity of the fiscal transactions and address the operational issues in an honest and forthright manner. Officers who fail to take sensible precautions likely will find themselves facing lawsuits from dissatisfied stockholders, which is why much of the current effort on Y2K projects involves documenting the activities performed by the corporation.

As for Mr. Howitt's comments, let me add my own for each:

1. Even software, which does not have obvious date dependencies, may cause problems; a word processor document may have an embedded spreadsheet or "macros" that do have date dependencies. Beyond that, it is necessary to address the issues for hardware, as well; it may be surprising that even some elevators have date dependency because their operating systems store maintenance information. One manufacturer of backup computer power supplies has automatic monitoring software, which would shut down the computer it is intended to protect.

2. Resetting the clocks of computers that fail to roll over to 2000 is not a practical solution. There is no possibility whatsoever that the Federal Government will pass a law to allow misdated documents to be assumed to be 10 years newer than marked and, even if it were possible to obtain such a law, it would make it impossible to engage in international transactions unless every country agreed. What he really is proposing is a re-write of the Commercial Code.

3. His "simplistic solution" for computer programs is equally impractical. Allowing the clock to be turned back 10 years could lead to corrupted databases and possibly the overwriting of existing data. In many cases, government regulations mandate the preservation of certain kinds of information for seven years or longer after the date a particular product is produced. In most cases, this approach would guarantee having Y2K-type problems.

4. Last of all, his technique of setting clocks back 28 years to 1972, in addition to provoking all of the aforementioned problems, will require paying a royalty fee; this approach was patented several years ago.

In short, there really is no alternative to facing the problems head-on. The reasonable backup plan for addressing this complex problem is to resort to paper and pencil--just like "the good old days"; the computer databases then can be brought up to date during the course of the year, as any newly discovered problems are analyzed and resolved.

While I agree with Mr. Howitt that we should not fear Y2K, we all are obliged to take reasonable precautions. Most foreign companies (particularly those in the Far East) are not nearly as far along in their Y2K remediation efforts as the U.S. companies. In an industry that has such a heavy reliance on foreign suppliers, it seems prudent to take positive steps to insulate our companies from these kinds of risks.

Barry Schwab

Automotive Industry Action

Group Y2K-Assessor

Y2K Preparation Not An Afterthought 

I agree with reader Phil Howitt's view that "Y2K Is Not The End Of The World As We Know It" (September "Letters to the Editor," page 4) but only because we've been working on the problem. There are problems with his simplistic approach. One is that there are embedded chips (for example, in power generation equipment), which cannot be tricked into an earlier date. Not only that, but also apparently no one knows exactly where all these chips are located. Another is mixing the fake dates with real ones. How can you possibly age an account if you have records dated 1990 that are really 2000, but others dated 1990 that really are 1990? As far as medical testing, doctors like to see not just the current information, but trends within a particular test for a given patient over time. Again, how can we know which of the records really came from 1990 and not 2000? Intermixing all these fake and real dates would lead to massive confusion.

I believe that we will have a few problems, which will linger as long as pre-2000 data must be compared to post-2000 data. Some of these will be obviated in 6 months or so; several will linger for years. I do not believe that we are facing a catastrophe, particularly if we all keep our heads and work through the minor problems we are going to face.

Eric Flaherty

North Star Computer

Consultants, Inc

Digitized Video Content Is Upon Us

As far as I'm concerned, one of the logical "killer-apps" for DVD-RAM is already here and it is the storage of digitized video content, as mentioned briefly in the September issue ("Is There A Killer-App For DVD-Writers?," page 48). DVD-RAM has been on the wish list of many people doing computerized video editing for a while now and Panasonic's recent efforts to demonstrate the feasibility of this solution show what could be common-place in the near future.

There should be no question that there's a crying need for an inexpensive, high-volume, rewritable storage medium for computerized video content and right now DVD-RAM seems to be the most obvious solution. CD-R and CD-RW can fill some of this need for now, but only for small video projects converted into low-quality MPEG-1 mode. With the coming shift toward MPEG-2 video as a widely used format at a data rate of at least 1MB/sec, CDs will not be adequate for the volume of data generated and a more advanced solution will be required. Such a solution will be useful soon to many consumers and businesses alike as the cost and complexity of producing quality video content becomes practical to a wide range of users.

It is already the case that for around $5,000 you can purchase all the video and computer equipment needed to produce DVD-RAM discs with semi-professional video content in MPEG-2 format that will be technically comparable to or better than the signal quality of current broadcast television. This is nothing short of a remarkable development, considering that just a few years ago any video production work was strictly a difficult, big-budget proposition. I have seen first-hand that some of the latest consumer-priced hardware and software for computerized video editing is truly easy to use and, once people realize that this is the case, I think it's inevitable that they will want to try it.

I believe that we are on the verge of an explosion in the use of computers for editing and storing video material and that it would be a major mistake to think that this is not the case. All the necessary pieces are now in place and the only remaining roadblocks are cost and awareness. Computer and camcorder manufacturers looking for new ways to sell their products will address the awareness issue and in fact this is already starting to happen. The cost issue is just a matter of time now: if it costs $5,000 to set up a DVD production studio today, it should be half that within a couple of years or so. This is not a distant reality; it's right around the corner!

Kevin Shaw