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Comment: |
Kark Feilder of Greenwich Mean Time is quoted in this article Iin THE STREET (Sept. 30).
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"The PC problem is horrendous," said Feilder. "We have conducted the largest independent testing of PC programs and hardware. We have tested the Basic Input/Output System, or BIOS, on over 500 types of PCs, and of those machines made before 1997, 93% failed the BIOS test. This is very real and will have a far-reaching effect." . . .
With a PC projecting on a screen, Feilder set up a simple spreadsheet calculating a 25-year mortgage with two different applications, the latest version of Corel's (COSFF:Nasdaq) Quattro Pro 6.0 and the latest version of Microsoft's Excel. Both calculated the loan dates incorrectly, showing that a 25-year mortgage starting on Dec. 2, 1993, would be completed in 25 years, while a mortgage starting Dec. 2, 1995, would end in "-75" years.
"I just met with an Australian bank and they told me that they run their currency trading operation on 30,000 Excel spreadsheets," said Feilder. "When they went through and did an analysis of what it would take to get them all fixed, they estimate that it will take 20 man-years to fix them."
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