Y2K. I thought I had a solid lower bound for the size of that one:
Small businesses basically did nothing in preparation, and they still had a fair
amount of dependence on date-dependent programs, so I was expecting that
the impact on them would set a sizable lower bound on the the size of the
overall impact. I’ve never been so glad to be wrong. I would still like to see a good
retrospective explaining how that sector of the economy wound up unaffected...
Small businesses basically did nothing in preparation [for Y2K], and they still had a fair amount of dependence on date-dependent programs
The smaller the business, the less likely they are to have their own software that’s not simply a database or spreadsheet, managed in say, a Microsoft product. The smaller the business, the less likely that anything automated is relying on correct date calculations.
These at least would have been strong mitigating factors.
[Edit: also, even industry-specific programs would likely be fixed by the manufacturer. For example, most of the real-estate software produced by the company I worked for in the 80′s and 90′s was Y2K-ready since before 1985.]
Y2K. I thought I had a solid lower bound for the size of that one: Small businesses basically did nothing in preparation, and they still had a fair amount of dependence on date-dependent programs, so I was expecting that the impact on them would set a sizable lower bound on the the size of the overall impact. I’ve never been so glad to be wrong. I would still like to see a good retrospective explaining how that sector of the economy wound up unaffected...
The smaller the business, the less likely they are to have their own software that’s not simply a database or spreadsheet, managed in say, a Microsoft product. The smaller the business, the less likely that anything automated is relying on correct date calculations.
These at least would have been strong mitigating factors.
[Edit: also, even industry-specific programs would likely be fixed by the manufacturer. For example, most of the real-estate software produced by the company I worked for in the 80′s and 90′s was Y2K-ready since before 1985.]