Y2K and the Globalization of Technology - Grant Bronsdon

Interview #1: Michael Bronsdon, Microsoft employee

Michael is the father of this paper’s author. He has worked at Microsoft since 1995, and his current division is with the SMSG Readiness group. He loves watching his Huskies play football, and is an avid photographer. His perspective here is to show an average “techie” and how they interpreted Y2K.

What is your educational background?
I majored in history from the University of Washington in 1983, and I graduated with a business degree in marketing from UW in 1989.

When did you first hear about Y2K?
Probably 1997 or 1998. I started working in Microsoft in 1995, and I first heard about it because it affected so many computers. Most systems weren’t built to handle non-2-digits calendar dates, so the problem needed to be addressed immediately.

Where were you working at that time (company and country)? What did your job entail? Was it related to Y2K in any way (i.e. was it in the IT field)?
My job wasn’t related to Y2K, but I was cognizant that developers everywhere were in the midst of updating. It was pretty hectic at Microsoft. They didn’t want their software to not work when the new millennium rolled around.

What did you think of it? Did you think the problems associated with it would be bad? How informed were you?
There were lots of dire predictions on systems, especially air traffic controls, defense systems, the like. I knew a lot of people that decided not to get on planes during that time, and a whole lot of people didn’t want to risk it.

What steps did you personally take to avoid it? What steps did your company take? What steps were taken in India, by the government or by other companies?
I didn’t really take any steps to actively avoid it. I didn’t want to be on a plane, just in case, but I wasn’t very worried about my computers. Microsoft had issued patches, and internal tools were tested to make sure they were Y2K compatible as well.

On a scale of 1-10 (1 = not worried, 10 = extremely worried), how worried were you as Y2K was approaching?
Probably between a 2 and 3. Again, the work done by Microsoft and other countries completely alleviated my fears, and I didn’t think it was going to be such a huge deal in the first place. The American media tends to overreact on issues that have a countdown aspect to them. Whenever something is approaching (like Y2K or Dec. 21, 2012), they will hype it up to sell their newspapers, magazines, whatever. The problems were blown way out of proportion, and this contributed to the worry everywhere. On top of that, I’d estimate that about 20% of Americans actually knew what Y2K was and could describe it. Many knew that it had to do with computers and the year 2000, but they didn’t actually know the extent of the problem. This undoubtedly contributed to the global panic that was so prevalent.




After Y2K was over, what happened to the jobs created by it?
Well, a lot of jobs were created because they needed manpower to look over the codes. The systems that needed updates were largely old programs that had been reused for decades. The newer computer people weren’t very familiar with the old programs or the old programming languages. People in India, however, never had the money to upgrade to the most advanced and modern computers, so they were fluent in these aging languages. Lots of work went to India. The Software Integration field was especially impacted. People that could retrofit these programs using four numbers rather than two were sought out, and it had a big impact on India’s IT department. It was basically like adding fuel to the fire.

What kind of impact was created by Y2K? Was the technological bubble created by Y2K kept, or did it largely pop?
There wasn’t all that much left to do after Y2K happened. The patches weren’t necessary anymore. Microsoft’s software partners, such as Infosys, Wipro, TCS, all had tremendous revenue growth. The Indian economy was still growing and they kept doing system work in Western Europe and North America. Some jobs stayed because Y2K helped them to establish credibility. They could work on software with new partners. The IT industry has been in a period of heavy growth for the last twenty years, so this was really more of the boom times for them. Basically, American and European companies needed to have stuff done even after Y2K. It was cheaper for them to have Indians do it, since they charged less, and the Indians were at least as knowledgeable as Americans. They also had lots of experience from Y2K.

Is the Y2K impact still felt today in India?
Yes. I’d say the impact of the dot com bubble bursting was unrelated to Y2K, but there are still jobs in India.

In your opinion, did Y2K contribute to the globalization of both the world’s economy and of technology?
Yes and no. It contributed by adding more jobs across the world, but it didn’t create long-term jobs, as most of the jobs were gone by 2002. It helped India build a solid reputation, though.

Do you have any questions or comments that you’d like to share? Any good stories?
I’d say that a big chunk of the work wasn’t needed. The simple workarounds and fixes that were used largely had a minor impact. However, the computer systems everywhere did need to be updated, so Y2K helped with that aspect.


Interview #2: Helene Martin, Garfield Computer Science teacher

Helene Martin, the Garfield Computer Science teacher, is in her first year of teaching here at Garfield. She graduated from UW, and has spent time working at Microsoft and at the Grameen Foundation. Her interview here is to give a viewpoint on Y2K from a teenager growing up at the time.

What do you remember about Y2K?
I was in high school at the time, I wasn’t too actively aware of the in the trenches stuff. My parents and father and friends were programmers. There was lots of scurrying around, people were dropping their projects to focus on this. The preparations had started a couple of years before. It’s interesting, you wouldn’t think it wasn’t a big scale problem. But there was a lot of code. You can interpret Y2K a few different ways. Firstly, it was a memory saving way. It’s half the space, using only two digits instead of four! That’s good, right? But you can also think of it as a programmer’s humility because they didn’t think it would last that long. 2000 felt really far away. The issue was more with big mainframe systems at banks and corporate systems that had been built in the sixties and seventies. Most software doesn’t last that long. However, data migration was much cheaper than moving onto something brand new. The Seattle Schools data is on a very old computer, made decades ago. Now, there are much better systems, but it’s expensive. People that programmed them weren’t around anymore, so a lot of people couldn’t do it.

What were everyone’s impressions of it?
My dad was a programmer. He didn’t work on Y2K stuff, but he thought it was overblown. As kids we thought “ooh the world would explode” but it wasn’t really like that. It was a lot of hype. I don’t think the people in tech were that worried about it because they had all the time to prepare for it.

Year 2038
The year 2038 problem is similar to the Y2K problem. In unix, dates are stored as seconds from January 1, 1970, stored in 8 bytes or whatever. When you run out of memory, you run back to zero. If it does really roll over like that I don’t know what will happen. Stocks won’t work. My guess is that they’ll get to it way before but a lot of infrastructure is on it.

What kind of things were happening in the Bay Area?
Mostly, jobs were shifted. “stop what you’re doing for a week and do a pttch for this.” Not a lot of job creation. I think the media blew it up. the annoying part was finding the different problems because they weren’t that obvious. Some were pulled out of retirement. It was the dot com boom so there WERE ltos of jobs.

Do you have an estimate for the percentage of Americans who knew what it was/could explain it to others well?
Oooh, that’s a tricky one…well, I mean, so again, I was high school aged. I certainly remember that my group of friends looked it up and got the idea. I was using a search aggregator. Metacrawler. Newspapers would stay that they’re storing two digits and that’s not enough information. I don’t know, I’d say in the adult population about a quarter. Among students, about the same percentage. I think that at the time, maybe more so than now, high schoolers were curious about computers because there was a lot of money to be made and they were new. They were the hot toys that everybody wanted to try out. You’ve played the Wii, seen an iPhone? It’s a very similar concept; the newest gadget is always the coolest. Not that it was cool to be in computers. Nationwide, probably less.



Any anecdotes, memories, etc.?
When you asked me about it, the first think I remembered is my New Years Eve party. Everyone was wondering if the lights would turn off. It was more curious wonderings than actual worrying. It would’ve been a much better story if something cool had happened! We were a little bit disappointed when we saw that. Oh now it’s 2000.

How did it affect you personally?
No real personal effect. In a sense, I think at the time I was starting to get really into computing, and it helped because it was this mysterious thing that I wanted to understand. It helped spark my interest. But I never did anything to ready myself for Y2K, or something like that. I wasn’t all that worried. On a scale of 1-10, I was probably at a 3. I hoped something interesting would happen! My friends and I, we would talk about it all the time, since it was such a fascinating subject, and we decided there had been too much money and time invested for anything major to go wrong. Plus, we thought it might have been overhyped. But what did we know? We still hoped that we could witness, say, a nationwide blackout.

Did it affect schools? Did schools have accessible computers and technology before?
We had a lot of technology at the time. We had a couple of labs, a very interesting setup in the major lab. We had a thin client. It’s basically just a screen that is connected to one major server. Didn’t affect it. Actually, that machine was running a unix variant. Some unix, some macs, a couple of pc labs. The Windows patches came out early.

Did Y2K help to expand technology after the millennium?
I wouldn’t say so. I lived in a really technology-dependant area, in Palo Alto, so that was never a factor.


Interview #3: Daniel Ingitaraj, Microsoft employee (working in India at the time)

Daniel Ingitaraj is a Microsoft employee currently living in Sammamish, Washington. He was born in Singapore and has spent much of his life working in both Singapore and India. His perspective is to gauge the level of technology and globalization impact Y2K had in India, rather than just in America.

What is your educational background?
I have a Master’s degree in business communication from the Bharathidasan Institute of Management.

When did you first hear about Y2K?
Maybe 1998, I guess. Around that time, I heard it could take over the IT industry because it was such a huge deal.

Where were you working at that time (company and country)? What did your job entail? Was it related to Y2K in any way (i.e. was it in the IT field)?
I was in India at Microsoft. IT field, so kind of related to Y2K. All of our software had to be Y2K compliant. We were helping companies be Y2K compliant. Making sure customers were using it and knew what to do so that Microsoft software was being taken care of.

What did you think of it? Did you think the problems associated with it would be bad? How informed were you?
There was a lot of hype and as we got into 1999 there was a lot of media. In my opinion it was something to be cautious about but with 2-3 months to go it was extremely frantic and we were just hoping that nothing would go wrong.

What steps did you personally take to avoid it? What steps did your company take? What steps were taken in India, by the government or by other companies?
Just make sure the patches worked, all systems were Y2K compliant.

Indian’s perspective:
India closer to Y2K had more than half a million computers, close to 4 million it professionals, and what happened with Y2K was it used the huge manpower and talent. Accenture, companies like it, they build software solutions for companies. They were system integrators and they made software solutions. In 1999 there were 10,000 SI companies of different sizes. Most of them built software solutions for the US market. Offshore system integrators were doing lots of work in the US. 10,000 companies were helping the US market be compliant. India’s economy had two parts. One was the domestic part, the banks, Indian companies, etc. The second part was the international side it was catering to, building software for the US, the UK, Germany, and so on. Side companies were helping become compliant. As it was getting frantic, the actual product was being made in India. The pressure was huge on India, especially in SI companies. Local economy, international economy serviced. People needed lots of talent, lots of people, and Indian companies were helping US banks and companies. Huge surge of recruitment activity. Company big in 70s and 80s had surge where, for anybody with mainframe skills, there was a huge demand. Big recruitment spike. Lots of projects were being offshored. The demand increased as Y2K approached. This created a gigantic market. As the joke at the time went, every SI (System Integration) company had a board in their lobby said “Anybody sitting inside will be recruited”. So that was one part of the differences. The time zone difference also had an impact. Indians could work while Americans slept. Huge IT demand, huge recruitment demand, more SIs were neck deep in projects, virtually swamped in projects.

Local:
India was more immune because late 80s was when computers were put in. computers were more modern. “not many systems” had much to worry aobut because it was modern enough. Had to be updated using patches, Indian companies had to do that stuff.

On a scale of 1-10 (1 = not worried, 10 = extremely worried), how worried were you as Y2K was approaching?
I’d probably say around an 8, because I was in IT (information technology), and I knew that the responsibility came down to me. Plus, I knew what could go wrong, and there was so much room for error.

After Y2K was over, what happened to the jobs created by it?
That was a big problem because the jobs couldn’t be transferred. No jobs for all those people. The created IT bubble burst very fast. 70-80% of jobs vanished in 6 months to 2 years. But all these programmers were still in India, smart as ever, and this helped spur other technology companies to move into India with offices to utilize this massive source of cheap, intelligent, and experienced labor.

What kind of impact was created by Y2K? Was the technological bubble created by Y2K kept, or did it largely pop?
There were lots of projects, and lots of money to work on stuff internationally. The off-shoring bubble was short-lived, since almost all international demand ceased once 1-1-2000 had passed. Locally was a different story. It was less of a challenge because programs were more modern. Now more companies were compliant, the software was checked, and they could do more jobs domestically too.

Is the Y2K impact still felt today in India?
Yes, I think so.

In your opinion, did Y2K contribute to the globalization of both the world’s economy and of technology?
I’m not sure about around the world, but it affected a lot of countries. It affected countries with trade regulations with US, because they had to regulate and check for compliance to Y2K standards, meaning four digit years were necessary. Countries like India flourished because of time pressure and off-shoring. “For an SI company in India, it was a boom time”. Y2K gave graduates boosts because they could get a job right away in the IT field.

Do you have any questions or comments that you’d like to share? Any good stories?
Well, right before Y2K, there was a help desk created in Microsoft India. Most help lines are customer service, close at 5pm. This one was available during Christmas time and New Year’s, near 2000. It was available 24/7. The first time in my career I saw a help desk or customer service on 24/7 was in preparation for Y2K. First time I ever saw 24/7. The whole concept was born during the time. We began getting calls months before. There was a backup for the whole help desk, in case something was wrong, there was a backup. Backup telephone lines (doubled capacity) so the lines wouldn’t be choked. We added staff to take calls. We knew there would be tons of people wondering why their computers weren’t working. We braced ourselves. Guess how many calls we got?

Three calls.

We got THREE calls the WHOLE NIGHT.

Positives: if worse, all the people would have been sad and our job wouldn’t have been done. The fact that only three calls were made showed that we did our jobs well.
Negatives: There were only three calls! We wasted all that money and time and we got three calls? One caller had a problem with windows calculator (wasn’t even a problem).