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Add to another $100b the $300b to $600b in y2k conversion costs, says the Gartner Group's Bruce Hall. (COMPUTERWORLD, May 29)
Who is going to pay for all this? On the front end, nobody. The y2k repairs will not get completed. The Euro will not ever be integrated into the banks' computers. What will happen is that the Millennium Bug will do its work. That will cost us plenty. No one wants to discuss how much. The cost, if the banks go down, is Western Civilization. If the means of payment collapses, the world collapses. We are dependent on the banks.
At this point, you must make personal judgments. If the costs of fixing y2k and introducing the Euro are this high, worldwide, and if there are not enough programmers to do it, then the costs of failure have to be higher than the estimated costs of repair. Otherwise, why would anyone bother to pay for the repair?
What portion of the costs of failure are you willing to pay? What you do between now and late 1999 will determine this cost.
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