Make no mistake about it, the Year 2000 is a problem that could sink the company. It will be very serious if we miss something, and have a product fail in the year 2000. Tom and I might not find every problem there is. As the official Kronos Engineering "Year 2-K Sheriff", I am hereby deputizing all of you. This audience is the largest posse ever formed, and we've got to organize and search for any possible Y2K bugs that might have been missed.
So everyone, raise your right hand, and repeat after me:
I,
state your name
(Alright! I knew you'd do that! I knew I could count on this audience!)
promise to be on the lookout
for any Y2K bugs
in products made by,
sold by,
or used by Kronos.
If I see any,
I will promptly report them
to Larry in Waltham,
along with a cash donation.
[lower hand]
Here's a good side effect of the Y 2 K problem, competitively. As you know, Kronos has figured out what it wants to do when it grows up, and that turned out to be "Frontline Labor Management", "F-L-L-M", or "Phlegm", as we call it. This highly successful concept was developed in a series of top-secret joint Marketing and Engineering meetings, although they must have been smoking something when they came up with the abbreviation "Phlegm". The existence of those meetings was known only to top Kronos management, and, of course, the Chinese government. Naturally, we are the world leader in "Front Line Labor Management", because our competition hasn't figured out what it is yet. Once they do, maybe they can tell us.
But seriously, it's better to be in "phlegm" than to be in Urp. "E-R-P", that's "Enterprise Resource Planning". E-R-P is the realm of the "J BOPS", JD Edwards, Baan, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP, and you may have noticed that PeopleSoft stock is slumping faster than the Red Sox in September, and the SAP has not been rising. One reason is our friend Y-2-K. In E-R-P, it's been a case of "I'm O.K., You're O.K, Y-2-K, oops!".
But why are we doing fine in Phlegm, while they're having so much trouble in Urp? It's because E-R-P rollouts take a very long time, whereas Kronos products roll out comparatively quickly. We're both losing sales to customers preoccupied with Y-2-K problems, but so far, Kronos is making up this business with replacement of non-compliant systems. But in E-R-P, it's already too late for customers to roll their systems out before the end of the year.
