Some companies have decided some major Y2K questions on the basis of what their accountants said was most cost effective. Moore recounted woes experienced by many of her clients who decided not to fix their old legacy systems because they'd have to be expensed in the year they were fixed. Instead, they opted to buy new and expensive package solutions that could be capitalized. Unfortunately, Moore said, in most cases the new systems will not be ready in time, and the old ones have to be fixed anyway. Moore gave a quick run-down on the current status of the federal government's Y2K efforts.
Many agencies have a long way to go and the costs are escalating quickly.
There is a much higher awareness of the amount of work needed and also how the dependencies with different agencies affect all of us. She told the story of one company in Connecticut that was being audited by the Department of Labor to make sure their 401K program would be compliant. There are a lot of issues here, and in many cases they are being dumped on the Y2K project manager, who in this case probably has no idea who the 401K vendor is or how the program works. But now it is their responsibility to fix it. The Information Technology department is usually the department responsible for most if not all of these issues.