02/22 16:27 H-P has Asia, Latin America Y2K fears

LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Some Asian and Latin American countries face disruption because they are not taking the millennium computer bug seriously enough, a top official of the Hewlett-Packard Co. , the world's third largest computer maker, said on Monday.

In an interview, Ann Livermore, vice president and general manager of H-P's Enterprise Computing Solutions division, said this could lead to power cuts and loss of public services.

Livermore did not name any countries.

She said Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard had made big investments to protect its own business and suppliers from infection by the bug. Experts say some computers may crash or spew out unreliable data because they will be unable to handle the transition from 1999 to 2000.

"We've made extensive (year 2000) investments in our own businesses. We hope to be able to switch suppliers if some can't handle the bug, but we are quite concerned that some countries in Asia and some in Latin America are not making the investment in year 2000. We're concerned about basic infrastructure things," Livermore said.

"Are utilities going to run, will airplanes take off and all those kinds of things could be very disruptive. Those kinds of things don't just hurt H-P. They will not put us at a competitive disadvantage, but it could still have a significant impact on those working inside the geography."

Livermore said Hewlett-Packard had made many contingency plans, but it was not possible to be ready for all eventualities.

"Some things that are most critical you want to put contingency plans in place, but you can't put contingency plans in place for everything. In countries where we have a factory and production activities, we would be more focused on making sure we had really strong contingency plans," Livermore addedwithout giving details.

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), February 22, 1999

Answers

Thanks for this information Ray.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), February 22, 1999.