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Comment: |
Leon Kappelman of the University of North Texas has responded to the Gartner Group estimate of
$6.46 per line of code. He thinks it may be closer to $4.
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From: "Leon A. Kappelman"
To: year2000-discuss@year2000.com
Date: Sun, 24 May 1998
Subject: Cost of y2k
The SIM Year 2000 Working Group's data from about 180 enterprises representing nearly 1/8th of US GDP has an average cost per line of code (LOC) of about $1.65. Little consideration is given in this figure to embedded or desktop y2k matters. Still, if I were to extrapolate from anectdotal evidence I'd put the average cost per LOC figure more in the $4.00 range. All such average estimates are problematic though since there is such a wide variation in the nature of the problem across industries and enterprises, as well as a very wide variation in the quality of I/S practices across enterprises, and thus a wide variation in the cost associated with y2k in individual enterprises (i.e., average cost has a large standard deviation). Moreover, the use of LOC as a metric is problematic (e.g., how do you count lines of code in a spreadsheet?). Complete details on the study in the Working Group's new
white paper report.
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