Rollover chaos may yet strike offices

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By LEON GETTLER

Monday 3 January 2000 Despite key infrastructure computer systems surviving the year 2000 date change, it was still too early to say the millennium bug had been beaten, it was claimed yesterday.

Senator Campbell, the parliamentary secretary responsible for Y2K remediation, said a clearer picture will start to emerge in the days ahead when businesses and organisations return to work and switch their systems back on.

Senator Campbell also defended the $12billion that Governments and business spent ensuring their systems were Y2K compliant.

He said up to 5per cent of systems would have failed if there had been no Y2K remediation work.

"Anybody who says it was not worth spending the money is either foolish or ignorant," Senator Campbell said.

"I think all of the organisations would say they have been prudent; and if they had to err on the side of caution, they were being sensible. With organisations like Telstra and Qantas, they don't waste money, they spend what they have to spend.

"I presume that people will ask the big organisations why they spent so much. They need to do it, and I am sure the explanations will be absolutely on the mark at shareholders meetings," he said.

Over the weekend, the Federal and State Governments and corporations including Australia's "big four" banks, the Reserve Bank, Telstra, Qantas, Ansett, BHP, Woolworths and utilities all reported they had made it through the date transition.

Australia's financial sector said its systems were working without a glitch, although they would still need to be monitored in the days ahead.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said there had been no hiccups and would be ready when business resumes tomorrow.

Similarly, the Australian Stock Exchange announced it was ready, after completing tests of its systems. More tests will be conducted today in preparation for resumption of trading tomorrow.

Around the world, there were only minor reported incidences of Y2K glitches, with the exception of the small west-African nation of Gambia, which suffered power failures and other disruptions.

Senator Campbell said a clearer picture internationally would emerge in the weeks ahead, as many less-prepared countries did not have good reporting systems.

It is estimated that businesses and governments around the world had spent up to $A917billion protecting infrastructure systems that underpin such key areas as telecommunications, utilities, financial networks, and air traffic controls.

The global IT industry research firm, the Gartner Group, expects the year 2000 problem to cause computer failures around the world throughout this year and possibly into 2001 as well.

It has forecast that 50per cent of Y2K failures will be spread out over 2000.

The United Nations-sponsored Y2K data clearing house has also warned that full impact of any year 2000 problems will be largely hidden until mid-to-late January.

The director of the International Y2K Cooperation Centre, Mr Bruce McConnell, said Y2K errors will become evident days and weeks after the rollover.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@AOL.COM), January 02, 2000

Answers

It burns me up evey one of these reports go into how many billions of billions of dollars spent. Hell it an't nothin out of their pockets, they recoup from insurnance, and insurance recoups from you and me, John Joe Public, to unpretected tax payer that has no defense what so ever against all these vultures, and preditors. It impresses me not how much anybody spent because I know who is getting the shaft. Lay off the billions and billions for Gods sake already.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), January 02, 2000.