CENSA Reports Trillion-Dollar Losses of Legal Records Will Eclipse Y2K Problems / Recent History Killed By Today's Short-Term Thinking

BOSTON 29. prosince (PROTEXT) - "Titanic 2020," a just-releasedresearch report from CENSA, a global market development association,notes that dramatic, trillion-dollar losses of critical data and legalrecords will soon occur because of inadequate software infrastructuresthat we must fix soon. The research report points out deep designflaws in electronic preparedness for the 21st century. The reportcalls the Y2K computer bug "the tip of the iceberg" compared to farmore serious problems that will start soon and last well beyond theyear 2020. Current technology mindsets ignore the problem of creatingsystems for long-term preservation and access to electronic records.The result is fragile records of all kinds -- business, legal,scientific, and personal. In "Titanic 2020," researcher Dr. RichLysakowski notes that within ten years, the total number of electronicrecords produced on the planet could be doubling every sixty minutes.Simultaneously, the integrity of these records as legal evidence willbe frequently violated until new systems are designed to meet theneeds for long-term archiving of electronic data and legal records.The report makes a call to action to global industry to proactivelysolve these problems soon or else suffer major, recurring consequencesmuch costlier than Y2K. From 1995 through 1998, individuals and corporations collectivelyspent more than $50 billion dollars to deal with the incompatibilitiesbetween two versions of just one widely-used software program, thereport estimates. When all major automation systems are counted, thecost compounds exponentially. Today's short-term system designapproaches seriously endanger or prevent long-term data access. Thiswill cause widespread litigation due to the loss of intellectualproperty and failures in regulatory compliance. More importantlycountless consumers will lose lifetimes of precious memories createdand stored using today's computer software. Adopting new software: two steps forward, one step back Today, software usage presents users with many hurdles: as usersadopt new software programs, they also incur a costly retrofit. New,feature-laden versions of software appear often, but rarely with fullbackward compatibility, nor do they work well with other suppliers'products. As a result, users experience perilous migrations to newerversions. Taking two steps forward often requires taking one step backto do costly and error-prone data migrations. The "Titanic 2020"report is the first to present economic models that go beyondproductivity benefits of information technology (IT) to address fulllifecycle costs of preserving long-term access to data and recordsacross generations of software. Data transport: the perilous journey To be legal, an electronic record must keep its integrity --meaning its content, structure, and context are preserved --regardless of the technology used to create or keep the record. Today,corruption or change of data is inevitable as it moves acrossgenerations of technology, because no universal standards exist forits long-term preservation or access. Present electronic data andrecords standards are fragmented, fast-changing, and largelyunsupported by software suppliers, primarily because support is acostly, unreliable business investment for vendors. Most high-techstandards have short lifetimes, and are not in the best interest ofvendors -- if data can be migrated easily and cleanly, a customer'spath to competitors is less obstructed. To prevent customer loss, fulldata portability is made difficult by omission of features to make iteasy. This omission often results in corruption of the integrity ofdigital data and records during migrations across generations oftechnology. Change is constant in today's high-tech world -- computersare obsolete the day you buy them. In contrast, many legal recordsmust be preserved for many decades or longer! Changing course The Call To Action will require a few important, incrementalchanges soon. Like most of us, information technologists don't havetwenty- or fifty-year time horizons, because a long-term focus doesnot return big short-term paybacks yet. Large corporations need toprovide incentives for IT professionals to take longer-termperspectives. Purchasing behaviors need to change to includeelectronic records requirements. Governments need to mandate betterlaws that support long-term preservation and access. Universities needto expand traditional computer and software engineering curricula toinclude electronic records requirements. Venture capitalists need toprovide incentives to the high technology community to develop stablebut flexible solutions that will extend far into the future. We needto balance innovation and time-to-profit motives with preservation andaccess to key intellectual assets -- the basis of "knowledgemanagement" or intellectual capital utilization. Finally customersneed to provide powerful incentives to vendors to make datainteroperability, and legal record preservation and access acrossgenerations of technology a high enough priority to solve the Titanic2020 problem. Given the IT industry's poor track record with long-termpreservation and access, coupled with the recent astronomical growthof electronic records, it is inevitable that many critical legalrecords will be corrupted or lost inadvertently. When -- not if --these corruptions and losses occur, they will happen on a far granderand costlier scale than ever imagined for the Y2K bug. The long-termpreservation and access problem will assume center stage of theinformation age in the first quarter of the 21st Century. The Titanic2020 report admonishes us to heed the Y2K warning and set our sailsaccordingly. The Titanic 2000 Research Report is freely available athttp://www.censa.org/Titanic2020.html or in hardcopy format. CENSA, the Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association(CENSA), is a global trade association of many of the world's largestcorporations and government agencies as members working together tocatalyze markets for advanced automation systems for R&Dorganizations. CENSA's market development programs focus on electronicrecords, knowledge management, collaborative teamwork, and systemsintegration for complex scientific, technical and business systemsthat support and drive rapid innovation. For more information, please contact: Richard Lysakowski, Ph.D. Michael J. Flannery Tel: (781) 935-9600 Info@censa.org ots Original Text Service: CENSA Internet:http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: Richard Lysakowski, Ph.D., orMichael J. Flannery of CENSA, 781-935-9600, Info@censa.org Web site:http://www.censa.org

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