| Datum | Länk | Egen kommentar |
| 1999-07-24 | Bubblor spricker... |
Den här krönikan i finanstidningen Financial Times berör inte 2000-problemet direkt, men steget är inte speciellt långt dit. Kolumnisten heter Samuel Brittan och är mycket känd i finanskretsar. Han är seriös och har författat flera böcker och skriver flitigt i både Financial Times och andra ansedda tidningar. I den senaste krönikan i Financial Times skriver Brittan att alla de klassiska tecknen på en börsbubbla finns idag:
Strong growth in the money supply, a rising investment share within GDP, a widening current account deficit and a personal sector plunging into deficit are all classic indicators of a bubble. "Virtually all the indicators on the bubbles checklist are flashing red for the US... When such bubbles burst soft landings never seem to be within reach." 2000-problemet är i mitt tycke en synnerligen "lämplig" katalysator för att spräcka bubblan. |
| 1999-07-24 | "Y2K - It's not the end of the world, but it might be closer than you think" | En krönika på theStranger.com. |
| 1999-07-23 | Allvarliga risker för multinationella bolag |
While the Y2K news from global corporations is good, according to representatives from industry giants
such as Ford Motor Company and Phillip Morris Companies Inc., the news from the countries in which
they operate is troubling.
Phillip Morris, which has nearly completed its own Y2K remediation efforts, has identified approximately 600 of its foreign vendors and business partners as being at "high risk" for Y2K failures, said Kevin Click, the firm's director of corporate audit at today's hearing. |
| 1999-07-23 | Fler problem för Bell Canada | Den här gången är de verkligen y2k-relaterade. Bell Canada valde att testköra sitt uppgraderade system på en vardag. Och det kraschade. Det är tydligen inte så lätt att implementera y2k-fixar. Inte ens för jätteföretag som Bell Canada. |
| 1999-07-23 | CNN: Banker och finanshus utanför USA laggar kraftigt |
Utanför USA är endast 22% av banker och finanshus "färdiga" med sina 2000-program.
78% är det inte! 78%. 5 månader kvar. They better hurry...
(IDG) -- While most U.S. brokerages appear to have most of their year 2000 work completed, only 22% of foreign investment banks, clearinghouses and stock exchanges have fixed, tested and implemented their systems, according to a recent study. The study, conducted by the Securities Industry Association and the International Operations Association, was cited in the latest report on the year 2000 readiness of the securities industry and public companies by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).Only 78 out of 650 foreign brokerages and stock exchanges targeted for the survey actually participated in the study. Still, the "majority" of those firms polled had completed less than half of their year 2000 projects. The survey was conducted between February and May this year. |
| 1999-07-23 | Expert ger Yardeni stöd - förutspår amerikansk arbetslöshet på 9 procent som följd av Y2K |
I intervjun utfrågas två y2k-experter om de tror att Edward Yardenis prognos
om världsekonomin är överdrivet pessimistisk. Yardeni förutser en kris i magnitud med oljekrisen 1974-75.
Nej, säger den ene. Det är vad vi kommer att uppleva. Men han säger emot sig själv också. Han förutspår att den amerikanska arbetslösheten kommer att dubblas till 8-9%, men att ekonomin som helhet kommer att stå still. Hur nu den ekvationen går ihop. Och aktiemarknaden kommer att falla 3000 punkter. Hmmm, en arbetslöshet på 9% och 'bara' ett tapp på 3000 punkter?! He's got to be kidding. Rätta mig gärna om jag har fel, men föll inte börsen med ungefär 50% 1974? |
| 1999-07-23 | Varför ökar centralbankerna reserverna av sedlar och mynt? |
Om det nu verkligen inte är någon fara med banksystemet, som bankerna själva hävdar, varför ökar då centralbankerna reserverna av sedlar och mynt? Och det är inga små ökningar heller. Hong Kong ökar sina reserver med 60 procent...
HKMA deputy chief executive David Carse said that to cope with any unprecedented demand for cash by customers over the holiday period, the note-issuing banks had placed additional orders for the printing of banknotes. This would increase the ratio of aggregate banknote reserves to banknotes in circulation from 100 per cent to 160 per cent, an increase of $60 billion to $150 billion using figures released by the HKMA at the end of May. |
| 1999-07-22 | Representant för U.S. State Department varnar för allvarliga störningar i världshandeln |
The 2000 computer glitch is likely to disrupt the worldwide flow
of goods and services, perhaps sparking havoc and unrest in
some countries, a top State Department official said in remarks
prepared for Congress and obtained Wednesday.
With less than six months left before the technology-challenging date change, "the global picture that is slowly emerging is cause for concern," said Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers, the State Department's inspector general. "Our assessments suggest that the global community is likely to experience varying degrees of Y2K-related failures in every sector, in every region and at every economic level," she said. In some unnamed countries "there is a clear risk that electricity, telecommunications and other key systems will fail, perhaps creating economic havoc and social unrest," Williams-Bridgers said. "Y2K-related disruptions in the international flow of goods and services are likely," she said, adding that "a breakdown in any part of the supply chain would have a serious impact on the U.S. and world economies." The international economy is "vulnerable" because Y2K-related failures in the supply chains of one country or region could disrupt others' ability to keep factories working, transportation systems running, food supplied and people employed, the State Department's inspector general added. |
| 1999-07-21 | Beroendeförhållanden mot omvärlden finansmarknadens akilleshäl |
Under mars och april 1999 simulerades 260000 affärer på New York-börsen. Vid en första anblick på resultatet av denna test såg det lyckat ut, då endast 0,02% av felen som uppstod hade grund i y2k-problem. Men ser man lite närmare på resultatet så var det kanske inte lika bra. Det var nämligen väldigt få firmor som deltog i testet.
Sannolikheten för avsevärda störningar ökar med antalet länkar mot omvärlden. Något som kallas för Beach/Oleson Pain Index. Detta är vad som gör att finansbranschen i synnerhet kan ligga illa till, trots att de själva hävdar att de kommer att klara övergången utan problem. Banker och finanshus är alldeles för beroende av varandra och sina kunder och antalet kopplingar mot dessa är väldigt många. The U.S. securities industry has been tackling the Y2K Problem since 1995. Therefore, it was the only industry in a position to do industry-wide testing in 1999. Participating in this testing, which was conducted in March and April of 1999 under the direction of the Securities Industry Association (SIA), were nine securities markets, 400 securities firms, and the utilities. At first blush, the results seemed successful. Of the almost 260,000 hypothetical trades simulating transactions for the dates December 29, 30 and 31, 1999 and January 3, 2000, 97.54% settled successfully. Of the unsuccessful trades, only .02% was attributable to Y2K. But what the SIA test summary failed to mention is that only a fraction of the SEC-regulated companies participated in the industry-wide testing, many of which are not yet compliant. The regulated companies include the registered exchanges, about 8,500 broker-dealers firms (with tens of thousands of branch offices and more than a half million registered dealers), about 8,000 investment advisors, about 5,350 investment companies (including mutual funds), about 748 transfer agents, about 15 public utility holding companies, and about 15 registered clearing agencies. These companies are electronically fused together not only with each other, but also with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the SIA, the National Association of Securities Dealers and its NASDAQ over-the-counter trading system, the banks, and the utilities. Picture this, and you'll get a small hint of the complexity of Wall Street data exchanges and the vulnerability of this market to Y2K disruptions. The SEC certainly understood that the failure of any linked system in this tangled infrastructure would have a cascading effect on the rest of the systems, with disastrous consequences to world economy. |
| 1999-07-21 | Norska miljöaktivister oroade över den ryska atomflottan |
Russia's Northern Fleet, which bristles with nuclear weapons,
lacks funds to deal with the Y2K technology problem, which
could cause havoc with its computers, a Norwegian group
warned Tuesday.
The Oslo-based Bellona environmental group said the fleet's warning systems are especially vulnerable to the Y2K problem, which could lead computers to make false reports of missile attacks... The Northern Fleet is based on the Kola Peninsula of northwestern Russia, and operates 40 nuclear-powered submarines and three nuclear surface ships, according to Bellona, which specializes in studying the region. "The authorities are trying to give the impression that they are doing something in hopes of calming the population. Unfortunately, Russia is far behind the West in solving this problem," Bellona researcher Igor Kudrik was quoted as telling the Norwegian news agency NTB. Russia has acknowledged that most of the nation's vital computer systems probably will not be ready for 2000... |
| 1999-07-21 | Ed Yourdon bryter tystnaden och försvarar sig mot påhopp | Stephen Poole, en "polly" som driver en site som förlöjligar folk som tar y2k på allvar, skrev för några dagar sedan ett öppet brev till programmeraren och författaren Ed Yourdon. Brevet var en uppmaning till Yourdon att ta tillbaka det han tidigare sagt, erkänna att han haft fel och att Yourdon vilselett allmänheten. Yourdon, en av de främsta experterna på y2k, svarar alltså nu på Pooles angrepp. Och han backar inte. |
| 1999-07-21 | Merrill Lynch erkänner att y2k hotar räntemarknaden |
Merrill Lynch, ett av världens största finanshus, konstaterar efter en undersökning att y2k utgör ett hot mot delar av räntemarknaden. Artikeln är från ZD Net.
Bond investors nervous about Y2K A new survey shows that investors, increasingly worried that Y2K glitches could affect the cash flow of corporate bonds and other riskier securities, may seek security in government issues and cash. Well before the curtain falls on 1999, a Wall Street survey found that bond investors are concerned about risks related to the so-called Year 2000 bug, prompting them to seek a safe haven in U.S. Treasuries. Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.'s "Y2K Fixed Income Investor Survey" polled more than 100 firms and found that uncertainty over cash flow may prompt investors to sell corporate bonds and other riskier securities, while holding government instruments and cash. Market participants are increasingly worried that unpredictable factors related to the turn of the calendar from 1999 to 2000 could affect the cash flow of certain bond issuers, and thus the liquidity of their bonds. Liquidity -- the ability to buy or sell a security at will -- is a key concern among market participants who expect declines in liqudity to be evident for some securities later this month and continue until early October. A "moderate or serious drop" Holders of debt issued by corporations are most concerned about declines in liquidity: 87 percent expect it to fall moderately or seriously. Many holders of corporate debt will seek a safe haven in U.S. government debt. "Uncertainty on this front is a Y2K conundrum: many investors cannot know for sure the amount of withdrawals and therefore have to overestimate," Merrill Lynch said. The Wall Street firm found that "most investors face at least some cash flow uncertainty -- 64 percent said they were not very certain about their ability to predict cash flows." Also, 55 percent of investors involved in the asset-backed and mortgage-backed debt securities markets said they expect a moderate or serious drop in liquidity. Active cash flows raise biggest fears Merrill Lynch found that markets with an active exchange of cash flow -- money markets and mortgage-backeds as well as asset-backeds -- are the most concerned about bonds with debt service payments around year-end. "To date, liquidity has been good for securities with late-December and early-January debt service payments. However 32 percent of those surveyed are concerned about owning these types of securities," according to Merrill Lynch. Corporate debt investors, the survey found, are checking closely for firms that are Y2K compliant. Investors said spreads on debt issued by noncompliant issuers should widen in the fourth quarter. Over half of those polled expected corporate debt spreads to U.S. Treasuries to widen by more than 10 basis points. Seventy percent of all investors expect liquidity to fall at least moderately. Investors appear to expect supply and demand distortions to occur in tandem. "Issuance will likely be moved forward, just as investors begin to build their holdings of liquid assets. Almost two-thirds responded that they expect at least a moderate curtailment in Q4 supply," Merrill Lynch said. |
| 1999-07-20 | Boston Globe tydliggör problemet vi alla står inför |
Den här artikeln är så bra och så tydlig att jag inte kan låta bli att lägga ut hela texten. The real Y2K problem - alla beroendeförhållanden!
The real Y2K problem The dreaded Y2K problem could be a disaster or it could be a huge dud. It's hard to tell. We'd better hope it's a dud because nobody really knows what a worst-case scenario would look like and it's hard to prepare for something you can't predict. We expect cranks to predict doom and gloom. But serious people who have been dealing with the problem for several years acknowledge at least the following: The Third World is impossibly behind, without any hope of making much progress. Literally billions and billions of lines of computer code in mission-critical systems around the world haven't been fixed. The US government is ahead of most of the world's governments but even many of its agencies haven't completed Y2K assessments. Even if an individual company is Y2K-compliant, it still won't be safe because its suppliers and customers may not be. Besides, there's no standard for what compliant means - one person's compliance is another person's complacency. Because of ambiguity in definitions of compliance, and because we don't know what a worst-case scenario is, many Y2K compliance statements and a lot of Y2K contingency plans are fantasy documents. Fantasy documents are based on best-case assumptions, and overstate how much safety they can deliver. For example, in 1989, in Alaska, the oil industry's contingency plan promised an effective response to an oil spill larger than the one from the Exxon Valdez. It was a fantasy: There has never been a success story for a gigantic oil spill. One important problem with fantasy documents is that they can lead to a false sense of security, setting the stage for a crisis in confidence when an accident or failure happens. Our interdependent world, which enriches us in so many ways, is the real Y2K problem. Let's say Corporation X has hired its consultants, fixed its computer systems, and declared to stockholders that it's ready. Is it? Imagine the larger system that Corporation X lives in: suppliers, phone companies, electric companies, purchasers, bill collectors, insurance companies, banks, universities. Now think about all of the networks those companies are embedded in. The complexity is mind-boggling. The potential for Y2K catastrophe is not from individual computer chips failing but from the unpredictable interactions of multiple failures. Managers should be extra careful because the same people who are experts in computer failures may not be experts in organizational failures. Given the urgency of the problem, and a real ignorance of how a lot of systems commingle, we are likely to see a lot of self-proclaimed experts unwittingly over-promising their real capabilities. That tends to happen when there's a lot at stake. I'm no doom-sayer. I think it is most likely that the relatively rich throughout the world will experience minor disruptions while the relatively poor are at a higher risk for serious suffering. That's generally how the world works anyway. But the truth is that for many problems, including the Y2K bug, there is no such thing as adequate preparation because we can't anticipate enough of the important things that can go wrong. Fantasy documents sometimes lead us to think that we're smarter than we really are. Better to admit the limitations of our knowledge. It's more honest, and it may even be safer. |
| 1999-07-20 | Brutna telekommunikationer i Kanada kostade 1 miljard USD för de drabbade företagen i uteblivna intäkter |
Förra veckan drabbades stora delar av Kanada av avbrott i telekommunikationerna, vilket resulterade i att bl a bankverksamhet och penningflöden avbröts under nästan en hel dag. Detta kostade miljardbelopp. Detta var ett begränsat avbrott, men det visar hur beroende samhället är av fungerade telekommunikationer. Och telekommunikationerna är bara EN vital del i samhällsmaskineriet. Problemet är verkligt. Ta det på allvar. 5 månader till Y2K...
Last Friday, someone dropped a spanner in the works at Bell Canada in Toronto and we all saw ghosts of Y2K to come. The telephone chaos cost at least $1 billion in lost business, stock trades, purchases halted in mid-swipe. The ripples were pure idiosyncracy. They missed much of Montreal, but hit Halifax, Vancouver, Chicago. They knocked out touchtone phones but not rotary dial phones - for those who remember what they are. Along with the billion, we took an even bigger hit in our confidence about Y2K. And even before our vulnerability could fully flower, we got hit again. A Bell equipment ``glitch'' in Peel left a million people without 911 service for much of Sunday. And - oh, devious technology - many of those who dialled 911 without result found they couldn't call anyone else for help, either. That's because the 911 system is designed to maintain connections to trace calls, even if callers hang up. Clearly, the Y2K problem is different. But not that different. In fact, the main difference is that Y2K doesn't need a real monkey wrench to blow the system. A virtual monkey wrench is just fine. So there are at least two lessons in this: For those in charge of fixing the Y2K problem, please check it all again. For everyone else, better hit the flea markets and garage sales before the rotary dial phones all disappear. |
| 1999-07-20 | Järnväg fungerar inte utan elektricitet |
Det här är från Computerworld. Om elektriciteten försvinner, kommer inte järnvägen att fortsätta fungera. Utan signalsystem och växlar - ingen järnvägstrafik. Har SJ beredskapsplaner för strömavbrott?
Electricity is the lifeblood of a railroad. It powers the thousands of switches and signals across Union Pacific Corp.'s 36,000 miles of track. It fuels its locomotives and the communication systems that link hundreds of dispatchers, engineers, brakemen and other train crew members. No wonder it's the railroad's biggest year 2000
contingency challenge.
Union Pacific does have manual procedures — which include dispatching flagmen to crossings — "but if we were talking about an across-the-board outage, it would be a severe constraint on the amount of merchandise you could move," Brechbill said. Yet it isn't a full-blown outage that most worries Gayla Fletcher, the railroad's top year 2000 contingency planner. Far more likely, she said, are lots of local outages, which the railroad has prepared for by buying 500 mobile backup generators. Plan B calls for tapping Union Pacific's 520 refrigerator cars — which are distributed throughout the entire rail system at any given time — as backup generators. Fletcher said Union Pacific has also built in redundancies to its onboard and field communication systems, buying 200 additional cellular and satellite telephones that crews can use to communicate in places where power is out. |
| 1999-07-20 | Sjukvårdsutrustning riskutsatt |
Enligt en undersökning av drygt 3000 tillverkare av sjukvårdsutrustning framkommer att mer än 1000 olika typer av sjukvårdsutrustning kan sluta fungera eller fungera dåligt. Många kommer inte att utgöra någon hälsofara för de som befinner sig på ett sjukhus, men så många som 20% av felen kan bli katastrofala.
Om Du kan: Undvik sjukhusvistelse kring och efter årsskiftet. TOKYO (AP) -- The year 2000 computer bug could cause more than a thousand types of medical equipment to malfunction at Japanese hospitals, according to a government report. Most of the potential problems are relatively minor. But about 20 percent could pose serious health threats, such as the wrong amount of radiation being pumped out in cancer treatment, Health Ministry official Atsushi Tamura said Thursday. The ministry questioned 3,223 companies that manufacture medical equipment believed to be at risk from the millennium bug or which did not respond to the previous survey, conducted in 1998. |
| 1999-07-20 | Datautbyte stort problem för myndigheter |
Det här är från Computerworld.
Mary Reynolds, chief technology officer for the state of Illinois, is doing all she can to make sure her state's computer systems are year 2000 ready. But in the end, her best efforts could be hurt by faulty data or failures in external systems the state must exchange data with to work with federal programs such as Medicare. On the first day of business in January, "the real issue and real difficulty in predicting the impact of Y2K ... will really be those [data] exchanges," Reynolds said. Some systems "are completely dependent" on the quality of data they get from other systems, she said. Many mission-critical government information systems share data across numerous federal and state jurisdictions. A state might have a fully tested data exchange with the Social Security Administration, for example, but processing checks might involve data exchanges with the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board -- data and links the state can't test. |
| 1999-07-20 | Japans banker redan illa åtgångna - och snart är det Y2K |
Ovanpå den sköra situation som beskrivs i den här analysen, kommer y2k-krisen som ett brev på posten. Om bankerna pressas hårt nu, kommer det bli än värre om 5 månader.
Japan’s banking chiefs are finding themselves in a difficult position with few options. Whether the Central Bank raises or lowers, or even keeps the interest rate unchanged, there is little guarantee that deflationary trends would cease. Japan cannot increase the interest rate due to a fear of even more bankruptcies by companies already unable to keep up with payments, even at the current 0.5 percent interest rate. This in turn would add significantly to unemployment, which the Japanese government has been directing most of its economic "reform" energies into avoiding. Pushing the rates lower is unreasonable, as they are already nearly at zero. Maintaining the current rate, therefore, is the only choice Japan has if it wants to continue to promote a social stability status quo over all other objectives. What is clear with Japan’s economic policy is that it is one based not on long-term economic recovery but rather on short-term solutions. The main focus, rather than being on the structural inefficiencies in the system, is instead on Japan’s social system, and a desire by the government to maintain stability. As Stratfor has previously noted, the failure of Japan to address the underlying, systemic problems in an effort to avoid a breakdown in the social fabric of the nation will continue to present Japan’s financial chiefs with fewer and fewer options. |
| 1999-07-20 | 20 anledningar till varför det blir svårt att flyga i början av år 2000 | Karl Feilder, y2k-gurun från Greenwich Mean Time, ifrågasätter British Airways uttalanden om att det inte kommer att vara några problem att flyga 1 januari, 2000. Det är ganska många saker som måste fungera... Saker utom British Airways kontroll. |
| 1999-07-20 | Filippinernas sjöfart långt, långt efter | Artikeln är från CNNfn. Utan den moderna sjöfarten kan ett land inte exportera och importera varor. I synnerhet inte länder som är omgivna av vatten. |
| 1999-07-19 | Bra analogi |
Ungefär här är vi:
Om Du hade varit en jude som bodde i Tyskland på 1930-talet, vid vilken tidpunkt borde Du ha fått panik och flytt? De ledande tyska judarna sade åt sina följeslagare att inte få panik. En panik skulle inte se bra ut. Det skulle ha varit "otyskt". Det skulle visa på svag tro. (Och det skulle ha försämrat ledarnas affärer...) Så de flesta tyska judarna flydde inte när de hade möjlighet 1933-1939. De litade på sina ledare som försäkrade att det inte fanns anledning att få panik eller att fly. "Stanna i Tyskland och hjälp dina bröder". Den här krönikan är från Gold-Eagle från 14 juli, 1999. Den tar upp de sjuka värderingarna på världens aktiebörser. The sudden volatility on world markets of September has given way to an eerie calm on Wall Street, and a return of crowd euphoria. With religious fervor, investors now believe in the power of the Federal Reserve to rescue the market from the very jaws of disaster. Looking beyond the moment, my forecast for 1999 is for the onset of severe recession, due to a combination of three fundamental destabilizing factors: 1. A worldwide credit-debt bubble of historic extremes, including an enormous bad debt burden. 2. Stock equity overvaluation, and 3. Effect of the Year 2000 computer bug (Y2K). Factors 1 and 2 are the culmination of a decades-long global mania of wild speculation, reckless spending and borrowing, public and private. They contain no inherently accurate timing indicators for an end to the mania and economic collapse. It is well known, for example, that an absurdly high-priced stock can always become more outrageously overpriced, as long as one more fool remains alive to buy it. With the presence of factors 1 and 2 alone, the economy and market could in principle continue their advance for years to come. However, with Y2K, for the first and probably only time in history an indicator's future schedule is known to high precision. We may therefore consider Y2K as a trigger for the other two destabilizing factors, in the same way that a chemical explosive triggers the fission of plutonium in a nuclear bomb. Japan officially admits a bad debt level of $1.2 trillion. Martin Weiss (martinweiss.com) now estimates the actual figure is $2 trillion, with an additional $1 trillion hidden in Japanese shell corporations' offshore accounts, the total equal to 60% of Japan's GDP. Total bad debt worldwide is estimated at $4 trillion, out of a total debt of $60 trillion. Much has been said about Japan's debts; however this is a worldwide problem. A good way to measure its extent is to look at the ratio of total (public and private) debt to the GDP of a country. For the US, the total debt is now $21 trillion, with a GDP of $7.5 trillion, the ratio is at an all time high of 2.8. Just before the Great Depression of the 1930s, it was a mere 1.8. The historical average is around 1.0. Economists have now shown that the severity of a deflationary recession is directly related to the level of debt outstanding at its beginning. Crucial is the quality of the debt, a measure of the financial strength of borrowers. Today, debtor weakness is at an all time high. To illustrate this, commercial banks had 42 cents in reserve for every dollar of short term debt in 1929; today, only 14 cents on the dollar. Derivatives are a new ingredient in the debt mix, only a couple of decades old. They are a gigantic "loose cannon" consisting of around $70 trillion worth of risky, highly leveraged investments similar to options, except they are not traded on exchanges, and are totally unregulated. They deal with everything conceivable, from junk bonds to real estate and futures on foreign currencies. A few large failures in derivatives would likely have a devastating result in the credit markets. For years after the horrific experience of the 1930s, most people shunned debt and credit as a moral leprosy. After World War II , this mindset could not withstand the enormous pent-up demand from two decades of deprivation. The mass-psychology flipped back from austerity to the easy ways of the 1920s. Credit is not only encouraged, but a status symbol in itself. A consumer's borrowing power has almost replaced income or monetary net worth as a measure of personal prestige. A blizzard of aggressively pitched credit card application forms arrive daily by post; the tube spills forth ads for debt consolidation, bankruptcy lawyers, home equity loans, payday advances. They promise deliverance unto bliss to the most unregenerate of habitual deadbeats, drowning out the heretofore ubiquitous automobile salesman. Equity overvaluation: The world has now reached the final stages of the most powerful stock-market mania in history. Like the 17th century Dutch tulip bulb frenzy and the 18th century South Sea Bubble, it is about to blow its top. Here are four methods of measuring the valuation of the market: 1. Price / dividend yield: historical average = 23, reached 40 in 1929 before crash, is now 70. (a New York Fed study shows yields are low because stock prices are high, not because dividends are out of favor) 2. Price / peak earnings ratio: historical average = 12, was 22 in 1929, is now 30. (Peak earnings are calculated for the previous 5 years, to average out "noise" in earnings figures) 3. Price / book value, historical average = 1.6, is now 6.0. 4. Stock Prices / commodity prices : historical average = 6, is now 34. According to these traditional valuation methods, the US stock market is presently overvalued by at least 100%. |
| 1999-07-19 | Ryssland mot kollaps - nyheter som i bästa fall får en notis på sista sidan i en tidning |
Ryssland. En supermakt beväpnad till tänderna med 30000 kärnvapenstridsspetsar, som snart kommer att bli oanvändbara, kommer inte att
hinna klart till 1 januari, 2000. Sådana nyheter blir små notiser i tidningar. I bästa fall.
Rysslands försvarsministerium säger att de kan fixa allting för 13 miljoner USD. En summa som är såå löjligt liten
i sammanhanget. Den amerikanska delstaten Texas y2k-program ska i jämförelse (enligt budget) kosta 192 miljoner USD.
Ryssland, som historiskt är känt för att använda våld för att få sin vilja igenom, kommer att kollapsa igen.
Ryssland är skyldigt västmakterna 100 miljarder USD och kommer att vara bankrutt om 8 månader.
Den amerikanska börsen bara stiger, liksom den svenska och i stort sett samtliga börser världen över. Men det är ingen finansiell bubbla. Nej, nej, nej! Vi kommer alla att bli rika. Se bara till att hålla ordning på dina papper. Det är allt som behövs... (Obs! Ironi.) |
| 1999-07-19 | En artikel som bör läsas | Washington Post. Det var den tidningen som avslöjade Watergate på 70-talet. Tidningen har gjort en mycket bra sammanfattning av 2000-frågan. Jag tror att de faktiskt tar frågan på allvar. |
| 1999-07-19 | "Y2K kommer att sänka Euron ytterligare" |
Jag får tydligen medhåll om min prediktion från den senaste krönikan... :) Y2K bug will savage euro The beleaguered euro is poised to plunge to new lows because of fears that banks in southern Europe will not be ready to beat the millennium computer bug. City experts forecast that big international investors will plough billions into US dollar-denominated assets this autumn in a 'flight to quality' out of the single currency. They fear that financial institutions* in southern Europe are failing to take the necessary steps to avert the huge problems looming if computers are not adjusted to recognise the date change to the year 2000. Fresh slides in the euro's value would also make the pound even stronger, further hammering British exporters' ability to compete with European rivals. The warning came after European Central Bank chief Wim Duisenberg hinted last week that the 11-nation eurozone's interest rate may be raised from its present 2.5% to help the euro, which is on the brink of parity with the dollar. It closed the week at $1.0199, compared with $1.06 in May. Some City experts predict that the euro could fall below 90 cents by the end of the year. Stephen Lewis, chief economist at broker Monument Derivatives*, said: 'The markets aren't focusing on the millennium bug issue yet, but they are likely to by the autumn. 'This could be a political issue for the eurozone nations. Banks in Germany and the Netherlands, which are better prepared for the millennium bug, will be reluctant to extend loans to southern European neighbours, forcing them to call in loans to their own corporate customers.' Computer experts say year 2000 problems lurk among regional and state-owned banks in Italy, Spain and Portugal. Robin Guenier, head of the unofficial bug fighter Taskforce 2000, said: 'There is a strong chance that some of them focused on upgrading computer systems to deal with the euro and left the millennium bug on the back burner.' He reckons that investors will become nervous because of the lack of official information on how ready European financial institutions are to meet the challenge. The single currency links all 11 eurozone countries, so problems in one will affect its value for the rest. More danger looms from the East. Stuart Thomson, economist at stockbroker Sutherlands, also expects a tidal wave of money to flood out of Far Eastern currencies, which are most exposed to year 2000 financial chaos, and into the dollar - taking it even higher against the euro. |
| 1999-07-19 | Kostnaderna för EU-länderna att parera effekterna av y2k under år 2000 210 miljarder USD | Låter lågt, tycker jag. Tyskland drabbas värst, ekonomiskt. Grekland drabbas värst, materiellt, enligt International Monitoring. |
| 1999-07-19 | "Ready or not, here it comes" | Länken går till The Times. Matthew May kåserar om läget inför årsskiftet. |
| 1999-07-19 | FSA vägrar publicera namn på de åtta stora finanshusen i London som ligger långt efter i 2000-arbetet |
Det här är från Computer Weekly.
Financial firms escape Y2K shaming Action 2000 has failed to persuade the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to name and shame eight financial services institutions for their lack of Y2K readiness. The news emerged this week, when Action 2000 revealed the latest results of the millennium compliance of the UK's key infrastructure and business sectors. In addition to the problems in the financial sector, 10 local authorities have also made little progress but, unlike the financial institutions, they have been named the date bug watchdog. Earlier this year, Action 2000 chairman Don Cruickshank said he saw no reason not to name those classed as a "red" risk under Action 2000's Y2K warning system, when the latest report on national infrastructure readiness was released. But the FSA has still withheld details of those failing. The authority's managing director Michael Foot claimed it was the FSA's responsibility to protect the cash of depositors, policy-holders, and investors, and that revealing the identities of failing firms would cause "a gratuitous crisis of confidence". However, if their names slip out an even bigger crisis could be created. Är det inte bättre att ta en "liten kris" nu, i stället för en stor kris efter årsskiftet? |
| 1999-07-19 | Delstatsförvaltning "överdrivet optimistisk" |
Vi kan ju bara hoppas att de svenska kommunerna och landstingen inte bygger luftslott omkring sig på samma sätt...
WASHINGTON — Indiana agencies have been overly optimistic in assessing their readiness to deal with the Year 2000 computer glitch, State Auditor Connie Kay Nass said Thursday. But Nass, testifying in Washington before a Senate panel, said it’s almost impossible to tell exactly how bad the problem will be in Indiana because of a "lack of ongoing oversight has left a vacuum of information on the state’s status." ..."I know for a fact that we’re going to have some problems in Indiana," Nass said in an interview following her testimony. The problem is not just government computers, Nass said, but those belonging to banks, vendors and anyone else who supplies or receives data electronically from the government. |
| 1999-07-19 | Nu börjar det bli allvar - företag som inte kan påvisa trovärdig "2000-säkring" stryks som leverantörer |
InternetWeek rapporterar. 2000-säkring är i allra högsta grad en överlevnadsfråga.
Y2K Crackdown By TIM WILSON It started with a polite letter. Then things got ugly. Now the relationship is over. Such is the story being told by an increasing number of IT managers alarmed by the Year 2000 status of their most critical business partners. With less than six months to go before the millennium bug bites, some companies are no longer just threatening or cajoling suppliers and other partners to get their computer systems into compliance--they're cutting the cord. Some 15 percent of companies have already suspended or terminated contracts with partners that aren't Y2K compliant, according to an InternetWeek Research survey of 250 IT managers. Another 23 percent of respondents plan to suspend relations with critical partners that don't meet compliance deadlines over the next six months... Läs gärna fortsättningen på artikeln genom att följa länken. |
| 1999-07-19 | "Goda" nyheter från Ryssland: Med nuvarande takt är de mest kritiska systemen säkrade år 2002 - om inga andra störningar stör arbetet... | Ryssland kommer att ha 1/3 av sina allra viktigaste system säkrade 1 januari, 2000. Även den mest naiva superoptimisten inser att krisen i Ryssland på allvar kommer att blåsa upp igen. Den här gången blir det betydligt värre än krisen 1998. |
| 1999-07-19 | Antalet flygbolag som ställer in flygningar 1 januari, 2000, ökar |
The list of airlines that have canceled all flights on Jan. 1 is growing. This week, it was Poland's national airline, LOT, that said it will ground all of its planes on New Year's Day. "The management has decided to cancel all flights on this sensitive day because of the possibility of complications or problems with the airline's infrastructure," company spokeswoman Monika Krajczynska told Reuters. "We want to be mistake-free and that's why we are taking this step." Asia Vietnam Airlines has already announced that it is keeping its planes in its hangars on Jan. 1 and Indonesia's PT Garuda says it is considering a similar policy. In Britain, regional carrier Jersey European Airways has also thrown in the towel. Britain's Virgin Atlantic Airways has also canceled all flights on New Year's Eve, but the company insists this decision has absolutely nothing to do with the Y2K problem. The company says it just decided to give its employees a "special night off." |
| 1999-07-19 | Amerikanska framstegsrapporter ifrågasätts från officiellt håll |
...but Committee members did not echo... optimism.
"When someone comes to me and says 'we are 100 percent ready right now,' that makes me feel pretty good," said Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Bennett. "If people come to me and say 'we are going to be ready,' that makes me a bit (nervous)," he said. Many of "those who say they are going to be ready are giving a November (completion) date," Bennett added. Such governments are "cutting it very close." Because local governments manage vital emergency response programs, water and sewage management programs and traffic systems, their progress, or lack there of, has drawn heavy congressional scrutiny. A NLC study presented at the hearing says only 90 percent of its 18,000 member cities will be Y2K compliant by Jan. 1, 1999. That means there are "1,800 cities and towns that even in their most optimistic moments don't think they are going to make it," Bennett said. And large cities are cause for equal concern. A GAO report released at the event shows only two of the nation's largest cities - Boston and Dallas - are Y2K compliant as of today, and further indicates that a handful of cities do not expect to be compliant until very late in the year (see related Newsbytes article). On another dour note, Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind. said at the hearing there is little that the federal government can do to boost state and local Y2K compliance. "The federal government is not going to be able to bring about compliance at the state and local level," Lugar said. Because of the grave questions about the Y2K readiness of the nation's cities, Y2K leaders are increasingly stressing the need for cities to develop viable contingency plans for their high impact systems and services. |
| 1999-07-19 | 19 av de 21 största amerikanska städerna osäkra inför årsskiftet - varför reagerar inte media? | Det här är en kort uppsats från Doug McIntosh på Gold-Eagle, daterad 19 juli, 1999. I stället för att rapportera att 19 av 21 städer ligger efter - långt efter i vissa fall - väljer media att konstatera att 2 av 21 storstäder i praktiken är "2000-klara". Hmmm... mindre än 10 procent? |
| 1999-07-19 | Ränteanalytiker: köp räntebärande papper | Den här analytikern för ett bra resonemang. MEN, resonemanget saknar en mycket viktig ingrediens i sammanhanget. OM Y2K-problemen skapar ett tryck på bankerna, antingen genom massuttag från allmänheten, eller genom att bankernas osäkra fordringar ökar dramatiskt, eller en kombination av de båda, kommer detta att driva räntorna UPPÅT. Och värdet på räntebärande papper SJUNKER. Det finns inga "säkra" tillgångar. Inte bara aktiemarknaden kommer att påverkas. |
| 1999-07-19 | Hets skapar problem | Trycket är stort på de som arbetar med 2000-säkring ute på företag och myndigheter. Så stort att de av tidsnöd installerar otestade system. Något som Manchesters flygplats fått erfara. |
| 1999-07-19 | Utslagna telekommunikationer lamslår samhället | En explosion och brand i Bell Canadas Phone Service Center lamslog stora delar av Kanada i torsdags. Telekommunikationer, banktjänster (inkl. bankautomater), internetkommunikationer och mobiltelefoner slogs ut under lång tid. Tänk Y2K. Tänk detta scenario (som alltså nyligen verkligen har inträffat!), fast betydligt mer utdraget och omfattande. Det här är från Yahoo News. |
| 1999-07-19 | "Expert": "Y2K får 'bara' ekonomisk effekt" | En expert har talat. "Flygplanen kommer inte att falla från himlen". Gäsp. Och faran från Y2K är ekonomisk, inte fysisk, säger han vidare. Bra att veta... Risken är väl snarast att de ekonomiska effekterna snabbt kan övergå i fysiska. En kraftigt stigande arbetslöshet, en handikappad statlig förvaltning, finansiellt kaos på marknaderna, trygghetssystemen instabila, etc. |
| 1999-07-19 | Indisk kraftförsörjning illa ute |
Läs och förskräcks. Risken i Indien förefaller extremt hög. Jag skulle nog svara 'ja' på rubriken till artikeln.
Will lights go out in India? An internal State Department memo is surprisingly frank in its assessment of the Y2K problems faced by India, the world's second most populous nation. While the memo is unclassified, it obviously was not intended for publication, which explains the directness of its message. The memo was prepared by the American Embassy in New Delhi and addressed to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Washington, D.C. As is common with such documents, the authors open and close with meaningless statements that put the best possible light on the situation. It's what you read in between those happy faces that makes this memo exceptional. The opening summary begins, for example, with assurances that "Y2K awareness is high in India, and the country has made some real progress in the last six months in reaching Y2K compliance, especially in the critical sectors of banking and finance, civil aviation, and telecommunications." "But," it quickly adds, "nowhere is the Y2K process complete, and contingency planning has barely begun. Most worrisome is the presently largely unknown vulnerability of the ocean shipping sector and the 70 percent of the electrical power industry that is under the control of the state electricity boards, large parts of which only now are beginning basic inventories and assessments." That's alarming news, considering that inventory and assessment is the easiest part of the Y2K-proofing process. For entities as large as these Indian power companies, it takes years to do the remediation work, much less testing -- and there are less than 200 days left before Y2K hits. This is alarming news, too, because India is a vitally important nation on the world stage, even if this is often forgotten in Washington. Right now its importance is readily conceded, given the possibility of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. For all its poverty, India has a sizable body of highly trained and competent technicians, some of whom have been welcomed into the U.S. to help us with our Y2K remediation. And it is huge, with roughly a billion people, and is expected to push past China by 2050 to become the world's most populous nation. In that most critical power sector, there is a stark contrast between the status of the private and government-run systems. On the private side, "The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), which supplies about 25 percent of the nation's electric power (mostly in the north of the country), has implemented a thorough Y2K program, which is now nearing completion in most respects," reports the memo. "Unfortunately," the memo continues, "the records of the SEBs (the State Electricity Boards), which together supply 70 percent of the nation's electric power, is much weaker. Some SEBs, 'especially those in the central and east of the country,' according to (S.C.) Gupta (senior technical advisor at the government's National Informatics Center), are only now beginning the basic inventories of equipment and assessment of the Y2K risk. NIC worries that power failures, even in small states, could shut down large chunks of the chronically power-short national grid." Later the memo states that "while many companies in critical sectors with sensitive equipment, large hotels, and government and diplomatic organizations have limited backup generation capacity, this total backup probably amounts to only 5-10 percent of India's total electric generating capacity nationwide." The memo states that "with rapidly diminishing time until the new millennium, NIC is switching its emphasis to audits of compliance measures already taken and contingency planning, which is almost wholly lacking even in the most progressive Y2K sectors of the Indian economy." "In private industry," says the memo, "CII (the Confederation of Indian Industry) has found essentially three present levels of Y2K readiness: large conglomerates like Hindustan Levers and TATA that are reaching full compliance, smaller companies that are now working through Y2K programs, and other smaller companies, perhaps 30 to 40 percent of the total industrial sector (emphasis added), that have yet to address the Y2K problem at all." The memo relays relatively good news about some sectors of the economy, but notes that "the Y2K coordinators that the embassy contacted can all talk the talk. The question is whether they can walk the walk. The few details that most coordinators provide about the specifics of their programs have made it impossible to make an independent assessment of India's likely Y2K readiness." After a message like this, one can only appreciate the sardonic but diplomatically restrained concluding sentence: "We would not be surprised to see some pretty annoying glitches here and there throughout the economy." |
| 1999-07-19 | De flesta fondförvaltare tar Y2K med en nypa salt |
Det här är från CNNfn. De flesta fondförvaltare tror inte att Y2K kommer att innebära någon extraordinär risk. Men det finns också de som gör det. Och en av dem menar i artikeln att även om medvetenheten och förberedelserna är större i de mer utvecklade länderna är det ändå dessa länder som kommer att drabbas hårdast.
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Forgive fund manager Mark Mobius for sounding a little blasé about the Y2K issue in emerging markets. After all, blackouts and other calamities are almost routine in developing countries -- and many companies don't even rely on computers, said Mobius, manager of the Templeton Developing Markets Fund. "The Y2K problem frankly is going to be seen in the developed countries," Mobius said from Singapore this week. "The emerging markets are going to be in much better shape than the U.S., Japan or the European countries." ...Since emerging markets often have blackouts or other problems, they're better prepared to handle those problems, Mobius said. Because their infrastructure isn't as good, they tend to distrust computers, he said. |
| 1999-07-19 | Panel diskuterar de amerikanska städernas förberedelser - 19 av USA:s 21 största städer är illa förberedda inför årsskiftet |
Det här är från CNN.
MARILYN GEEWAX, COX NEWSPAPERS: Mary,
Many of the cities say they won't be ready until the final quarter of the year. Well, you know how deadlines are, you think that you are going to be done in November and December, but January 1st is awfully close. The report on the cities and counties was certainly reason to be concerned about how ready we'll be for Y2K at the local level... |
| 1999-07-19 | Bankpanik i Sydamerika inte bara möjligt utan också troligt, enligt artikel i Financial Times |
Beslutsunderlag finns i överflöd. Världen kommer att slungas in i ett finansiellt kaos. Varför agerar ingen? Tror man att problemen försvinner för att man blundar för dem? Följande är ett citat ur artikeln i Financial Times:
The millennium (Y2K) bug poses additional dangers, with some analysts predicting investors will pull money out the region for fear of a New Year's Eve financial meltdown. "We fully expect a rush of private capital out of emerging markets sometime before the Y2K bug evolves into a problem," says Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. "If so, huge capital outflows from emerging markets before the end of this year will cause monetary implosion across the developed world and reverse all the incipient economic recoveries." Konsten att låta innehållet i en text att inte låta lika allvarligt som det i verkligheten är: "huge capital outflows" = "everyone's gonna bail at once" "monetary implosion" = "crash" "and reverse all the incipient economic recoveries" = "depression" |
| 1999-07-19 | "Överdriven 2000-oro med inbäddade system" | Det här är från IDG. Problemet med inbäddade system är inte så stort som många vill göra gällande, säger Leif Tellestedt, som under tre år arbetat med Scanias 2000-anpassning. Vi får väl se. |
| 1999-07-11 | Politiker ifrågasätter de amerikanska kärnkraftverkens uttalanden | Demokraten Edward Markey säger att den senaste rapporten från Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, bara "bekräftar hans farhågor om kärnkraftverkens brist på förberedelser". |
| 1999-07-11 | "En falsk känsla av trygghet förefaller uppstå" |
Y2K followers are concerned that the country is
being lulled into a false sense of security because
there haven't been any high-profile, high-impact
Millennium Bug failures.
But the false sense of security theme would be a tough sell if you live in New Berlin, Wis., are a passenger with Air France, a business owner in Ohio or a widow in Japan. In New Berlin, residents were left without water this week after a new computer system designed to sidestep Y2K problems malfunctioned. Two main water tanks drained when computers failed to activate pumps to fill them. Residents had to ration their water. On the same day that the Air Transport Association of America said 95 percent of its work was done, Air France stranded 4,000 pieces of luggage at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport. The culprit? An unsuccessful attempt to upgrade the airport's baggage computer system to squash the bug. Some travelers were luggage-less for two days. In Ohio, a new $7 million computer system in the secretary of state's business office has so many bugs it will never run smoothly, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. New corporate filings that once took two weeks now take two months. And in Tokyo, stress from dealing with Y2K drove a 40-year-old man to commit suicide, his wife said. The man routinely put in 15-hour days at the Osaka steel sales company, where he was in charge of computer software, she said in a court filing. The man was ordered to ensure that more than 600 pieces of software would be bug-free. The work did not go well, and he would come home late and tell his wife "I want to die," the Kyodo news agency reported. He jumped to his death from their apartment building in February 1998. She is seeking compensation. |
| 1999-07-11 | 80% av Tokyo-bor oroade inför årsskiftet | Man undrar ju hur mycket börserna kommer att falla när japanerna börjar sälja ut sina tillgångar inför årsskiftet... |
| 1999-07-11 | Konkurrent till Microsoft varnar för Excel | Naturligtvis ligger det i konkurrentens intresse att misskreditera Microsofts Excel. Men ändå... Det här är från Computerworld. |
| 1999-07-11 | Japan tog livet av sig | Japan startade sent. FÖR sent. Nu får de japaner som arbetar med 2000-säkring slita ordentligt. De kommer i och för sig ändå inte att hinna klart. Något som japanen i artikeln som tog livet av sig nog också insett... |
| 1999-07-11 | Läsvärt inlägg av Cory Hamasaki |
Länken går till ännu ett inlägg på ett diskussionsforum. Inlägget är skrivet av "gurun" Cory Hamasaki. Läsvärda är också de efterföljande kommentarerna till hans inlägg. Här är ett par korta stycken:
Here's the proof that fix on failure will not work. Numerous companies have reported spending years and hundreds of millions of dollars painstakingly fixing Y2K problems. Why didn't they just come in on a weekend, the 4th of July would have been a choice, roll their clocks forward, take the failure and fix it in, oh, 2 or 3 hours? They didn't because although this would expose many, perhaps most of the Y2K problems, they know they can't fix these problems in, oh, 2 or 3 hours. Fixing one incarnation of a date problem could take a few minutes or it could take months. Fixing all problems will take years. |
| 1999-07-08 | FBI drar in ledighet och förbjuder ledighet under december 1999 och januari 2000 |
God Jul och Gott Nytt År! säger vi till de anställda på FBI som säkert gärna skulle vilja vara lediga vid jul och nyår. Men det får de inte... Det här är från WorldNetDaily.
Commenting on the infrequency of such a move by the FBI, the agent from the Department of Health and Human Services said, "To my knowledge, even during the Iranian crisis in 1980 and the war with Iraq, I don't think the entire FBI had been on alert and all annual leave canceled." "It's a mess," concluded the agent concerning the FBI's Y2K preparation. "They're very much behind. If it was a 72 hour 'snowstorm,' you wouldn't bring out 12,000 FBI agents on stand-by and, for the first time maybe in FBI history, cancel everybody's annual leave for a 20-30 day time frame. That's very significant. In my line of work, that's called a clue." |
| 1999-07-07 | "Fortfarande tror folk att y2k är en bluff" |
En krönika av Michael Hyatt på Westergaards site.
Every now and then I encounter someone who thinks that Y2K is a hoax. These people assert that there have been no documented Y2K-related failures and that the whole issue has been concocted by computer consult-ants, preparedness products suppliers, and authors trying to sell books (yours truly). Unfortunately, because the masses are so eager to believe anyone who will assure them that their present prosperity will continue without interruption, these self-appointed debunkers often go unchallenged. As a result, many naïve souls are being lulled back to sleep, believing that all is well and there is no reason to make preparations. Nothing could be further from the truth. This Y2K-is-a-hoax perspective is, at best, a result of extremely shallow research and, at worst, a product of deliberate disinformation. Either way, it is untrue, unhealthy, and danger-ous. Those who believe it and do nothing to prepare are putting themselves and their loved ones at tremen-dous risk. |
| 1999-07-07 | Rumänien mycket illa ute |
Rumänien kommer att lamslås år 2000. Har man först nu precis börjat med sitt 2000-arbete är det för sent. Synd för rumänerna, synd för Europa.
...Romania was late in taking action, with many bureaucrats failing to grasp the issue. "We still have a lot of education work to do," Iliescu said. |
| 1999-07-07 | Programmerare ger sin syn |
Y2K-problemet är definitivt verkligt, säger en programmerare i en artikel i NewsMax. Han ser dominobrickorna framför sig i sitt arbete. Och det kommer inte att gå så bra som 99,8% av jordens befolkning tror och/eller hoppas.
Many companies that are reporting themselves as compliant are in real trouble. Many of them have taken the conventional course of relying on information from vendors and manufacturers as to the status of their software. In addition, they have secured patches, fixes and upgrades from these same vendors and manufacturers that will fail in the Year 2000. The vendors or manufacturers, over 90% of them, have used a technique called '"windowing" to repair their software. Unfortunately, there is no technical standardization for "windowing” and the manufacturers have used many different forms of this technique. Different applications using different "windowing" techniques will encounter problems. Also, none of the manufacturers have taken into consideration the "orphan files" that permeate most computer systems. These are various types of files that have been added to a system over time as applications, operating systems and GUI's are installed and removed. The errors caused by this type of oversight are not the kinds that instantly kill a system. The errors caused by this type of problem will build over time, it is estimated that a typical corporate user will reach critical mass in 4 to 8 weeks, and when the number of errors reaches critical mass the system will fail. A large corporate computer network will have tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of "orphan files". As you can see, many companies will experience failure even though they believe they have corrected their software. My company offers a free audit tool for testing computer networks. Auditing a very small sample of the computers on the network will dramatically demonstrate that the software is not compliant. Naturally the "fix" for the problem is what you pay for. I will use the following example as a means of lending credence to our claim. As you may be aware, Microsoft indicated that Windows 98 was compliant when it was released. The developers of this technology audited the Win98 product with this new technology and informed Microsoft that Win98 was not compliant and provided them with a report that specified and identified every single short 2 digit year field in the program. Microsoft initially denied the claim but 7 months later announced that Win98 was not compliant. Win2000 was just released and again the audit was run against the product and it was discovered that there were in excess of 40,000 short 2-digit year fields in the product. What are the odds that this is going to work? Our problem in offering this technology is trying to get it generally known that it is available. We are a very small company. We believe that we could assist many companies and government agencies in reaching compliance, but with the time left and our limited resources we will never reach them. I just wanted you and the rest of the people that use your website to know that there is a solution, it is just that no one is listening. I believe that the impact of the Y2K problem will be significant. There are two distinct areas to be considered: The social ramifications and the economic ramifications. First, I will address the social aspect of the problem. The critical factor in how bad things will be socially is directly proportional to the fitness of the electric utility companies. They are the lynchpins of our future. If the utilities managed to keep the power on for the most part or if failures are very short term in duration, 3 days or less, then there is a good chance that the social upheaval will be minimal. If there are significant power failures and for extended periods then the results will be catastrophic. Most people or families can survive for about 3 days on what is contained in the average household. After that, if there is no power or water, water is electrically fed to the general population; people will begin to take to the streets in search of basic needs. And as A.H. Maslov indicates in his book "The Hierarchy of Human Needs", man will revert to level one and become a very basic creature concerned only with survival. This will result in very negative and violent actions. Even the implementation of martial law will not be sufficient to control a hungry, desperate and well-armed population. There are not enough US soldiers, even with the help of UN troops, to police a county the size of the United States. The use of UN troops ultimately only causes US citizens to react even more violently. John Q. Public may not, on average, be the brightest person on the block anymore, (due to government controlled education, but that is another story) but he knows when he is being had and will react. There is not one utility in this country that will guarantee service on January 1, 2000. It would be a sad state of affairs if Americans were put in a position of having to prey on each other for survival, but that possibility does exist. The social unrest is going to be directly proportional to the utilities ability to keep the lights on which in turn will allow basic need commodities to be generally available, even if some shortages exist. The economic ramifications are another issue altogether. The World Bank recently completed and published, in February of this year, a report based on months of in depth investigations by its own Y2K experts who had visited virtually every county in the world that use computers in their government/industrial complex. The results were staggering. Of the 138 "developed" (computer using) countries in the world only 15% or 21 countries have taken any action to address the Y2K issue. That leaves 117 countries that have done nothing!! If that doesn't scare the hell out of you, then you are a stronger man than I am. It frightens me to my very core. The implications of this information are almost beyond comprehension. And of the 21 countries that have taken steps to correct the problem, many of them are not doing very well. Germany announced recently that over 60% of the companies in Germany will experience mission critical failures. If the German mark fails the balance of the European economy will be right behind it. The Gartner Group, a well recognized IS consulting and information-gathering organization, released a report in April of 1998 concerning a survey they conducted of the 6,000 largest companies in the world. This extensive survey revealed that 40% of these companies had yet to begin or were in the very early stages of their Y2K efforts. The average Y2K program takes 3 years to complete. My interpretation of that information is that 2,400 of the largest companies in the world will have malfunctioning or non-functioning computers in January of 2000. They released another report earlier this year that said that 80% of the companies in the US that had 2000 or fewer employees had yet to begin their Y2K programs. Every agency of the federal government has testified before congress that they will not solve their Y2K problems until well into the next century. State and local governments are in even worse shape. Experts have testified, under oath, before congress and told them that the infrastructure of the federal government will collapse. The government will never tell you that the asteroid is coming. Sometimes the statistics or the evidence seems so overwhelming as to be unbelievable. Someone said that the public at large will continue to believe his or her preconceived notions about a situation in spite of the evidence to the contrary. The world just refuses to believe, in spite of the evidence, that the size of a year field in computer software programs and data could potentially cause such devastation. I was speaking with one of my associates the other day about the fallout from this event. He had a very unique perspective on the situation. He said, "Forget all the statistics and other speculation concerning the Y2K issue and realize this. If just one percent of the businesses in the US and the rest of the world fail the results, economically speaking, will be serious damage to the strongest economies and it will destroy most others." And almost without exception, every expert or anyone who has studied the issue, will easily agree to the fact that more than 1% of the businesses will fail. Some project as high as 30%-40% while most will agree to somewhere between 10%-15%. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and we have approximately 1,000,000 businesses in the surrounding 13 counties. Can you imagine what will happen if 100,000 of them cease to exist. Or even at the 1% level - 10,000 businesses gone. Truly staggering consequences. Even if you could convince yourself that all the businesses and government at all levels in the US were fully compliant the resulting failures from other countries around the world would significantly and adversely affect the US economically. |
| 1999-07-06 | Bra sammanfattning med ett halvår kvar | Ytterligare ett inlägg på ett debattforum. Visserligen med amerikanska ögon, men situationen i USA borde likna den i Sverige. |
| 1999-07-06 | Extrem brist på IT-folk | 80% av företagen har svårt att få tag på IT-personal. Paretos 80-20 igen. Länken går till en artikel på InformationWeek. |
| 1999-07-06 | Brittiskt memo varnar för kaos i Ryssland |
Fearing the implications of the Y2K millenium bug, an internal embassy memo leaked to the Independent underscored British concerns that Russia is "considered one of the countries most vulnerable to Y2K problems."
The report notes that Russia has recently increased efforts to fix the Y2K problem. Experts, however, have concluded that Russia is doing too little, too late, to manage the computer problem. The Independent states that "at risk" areas in Russia include transport, electricity supply, telecommunications, and heating systems. An American Chamber of Commerce report issued by Terralink, an IT firm specialising in millennium bug issues, found that Russia could suffer catastrophic consequences because it was "very likely that major infrastructure providers upon whom everybody depends, will experience Y2K failures". Notably, experts have pointed to concerns about Russia's nuclear power stations, fearing a meltdown similar to Chernobyl, if the power grid fails. |
| 1999-07-06 | Bell South säger att mer än hälften av deras leverantörer ljuger om 2000-status |
Företagen ljuger om huruvida de som företag är 2000-säkrade. Men det kommer inte som någon chock för mig i alla fall. De vill ju inte förlora några affärer. De kan alltid hävda, "ojdå, vi trodde verkligen att vi var säkrade." Men just nu förlorar de inga affärer i alla fall. Problemet är bara att de företag som är beroende av dessa lögnare kommer att få stora problem nästa år. Bell South, ett av världens största telekomföretag, menar att mer än 50 procent av deras leverantörer ljuger om sin 2000-säkring.
..."Unfortunately, such misrepresentations by vendors can be pervasive," said Art Filip, lead Y2K consultant for IBM Global Service, based in Orlando. "Too many are lying to say for legal reasons they are Y2K compliant. "It's causing big trouble now, and after everybody finds out the real truth, there's going to be a major shakeup in a lot of business relationships because of the economic impact." . . . . In Florida, the chairman of a governor's Y2K task force said many businesses have complained about the growing number of false Y2K-compliance claims. "In some cases, we've been told the Y2K lying rate is as high as 50 percent," said Tom McGurk, who is also secretary of the Department of Management Services. BellSouth Corp., for example, told state officials that more than half of the compliance claims by its vendors turned out to be incorrect when they were independently tested, he said. . . . "Lying about the compliance status of your products is certainly not the way to maintain customer relationships," said Bob Cohen, vice president of the Information Technology Association of America, a Washington trade group. "It flies in the face of reason to say that many are doing that. I'm sure there are some bad actors out there, but it is not representative of the industry." But a number of businesses in Central Florida disagree, saying they are having problems with claims. "I've had a lot problems with some of the answers I get," said Phil Hamilton, office administrator and Y2K coordinator for Gurney & Handley, an Orlando law firm. "Sometimes they just don't check out. Now I've learned to be cynical from the start, and the easy answers are the ones I distrust the most."... |
| 1999-07-06 | Brittiska piloter kommer bara flyga till länder de anser vara säkra | Det här är från BBC. Med andra ord kommer de förmodligen inte flyga till destinationer som Paris (riktigt illa förberedda, enligt rapport för några veckor sedan), Rom (Italien över huvud taget), Öststaterna, Ryssland, Latinamerika, Afrika och Asien (utom Singapore som enligt uppgift häromdagen ska vara "klara"). Britterna har med andra ord lite svårt att resa i början av nästa år... |
| 1999-07-04 | Företag sprider falsk information |
På diskussionsforumen hittar man ibland saker som inte rapporteras i media. Lägesrapporter från 2000-samordnare och -programmerare. Här är en s.k. thread från Ed Yourdons diskussionsforum. Huvudinlägget är skrivet av 'Mike', projektledare för y2k-arbetet på ett stort investmentbolag - med andra ord en person med en mycket central position och överblick över detta företags 2000-arbete. Mike säger att företaget i fråga hade ett slutdatum satt till 30 juni. Det infriades inte. Men det är inte bara det att projektet försenats. Den officiella informationen från företaget talar inte om några förseningar. Och det förefaller också som om de medvetet ljuger för SEC och NYSE om deras status. Låter inte bra...
I’m working a y2k network/desktop project for a very large investment company in St. Louis. I will not divulge the name, it wouldn’t help our cause and I need to work. This y2k remediation project has been going on for over a year, I’ve been with the team for ~5 months. As with so many “like” companies, we had a required completion date of June 30th. THE STAGE: July 1st 1999. Y2k Network team meeting, ~20 team members present. The representative for the company is giving the team an update on overall progress and future timeline. I’ll paraphrase from now on and the text is not verbatim. COMPANY REP: “ As you all know your contracts have been extended through July. We failed to meet our June 30th goal. Specifically because of stonewalling on the part of some of the upper management. I appreciate your efforts and you are not responsible for this failure.”…… “ To make this short and sweet the plans have changed. Once again. In all honesty I do not know what the next step will be. I expect that to be addressed sometime next week. Incidentally, I was asked to reduce the staff of this team to a skeleton crew. I refused.” A TEAM MEMBER “ Won’t the NYSE send auditors to verify y2k compliance?” COMPANY REP “If they do, we expect a 2 or 3 day notice in advance, in which case you’ll be working 16 hours a day to remove non-compliant machines, no matter what the residual cost to the company due to lost revenue and clients.” A TEAM MEMBER “Doesn’t the company have to send an official compliance statement to the NYSE?” COMPANY REP “ Yes. I believe we have until the 6th or 7th of July to deliver it.”… “Be aware, what we say in this meeting is not to leave this room understood? HEADS NOD “ When we deliver the statement to the NYSE next week, it will say “Compliant” whether we are or not, that’s the bottom line.” THIS TIME HEADS SHAKE FROM LEFT TO RIGHT Their wasn’t much said after that that would be of interest to this forum so I’ll skip it. That’s all for now, I’m going to clear this with someone I trust before I post this. You know CYA. Short of revealing the company name, I will answer all reasonable questions regarding this post. Thanks, -- Mike |
| 1999-07-04 | "Delar av USA riskerar att bli strömlöst i flera veckor", säger konsult |
Den här nyheten hittade jag genom Rick Cowles diskussionsforum. Rick Cowles är en av de främsta experterna på kraftindustrin och följer noga utvecklingen på y2k-området. Han har kallats till Senatsförhör flera gånger angående kraftsektorns status. Han är med andra ord trovärdig. Rick Cowles svarar själv på frågan som väcktes, liksom en journalist vid CBN News, som ska undersöka uttalandet vidare. Artikeln/nyheten, som diskuteras stod att läsa på Bloomberg.com, en av världens främsta nyhetsförmedlare.
"Utilities are scared," said Cameron Daley, chief operating officer of Framingham, Massachusetts-based Tava/R.W. Beck, which tested and upgraded systems for more than 100 U.S. utilities. "The whole grid won't collapse, but there will be outages that could last up to several weeks." While no utility has guaranteed there won't be blackouts Jan. 1, industry groups said utilities are doing everything they can to prevent problems, including preparing for the worst. "We believe Y2K won't be a problem," said Eugene Gorzelnik, a spokesman for the council. "There will be a huge backlash if a utility reports it's Y2K ready, and it turns out that it wasn't." |
| 1999-07-03 | Många svenska myndigheter kommer inte att hinna klart till 1 januari ! ! ! |
Det här är inte särskilt goda nyheter. Anders Johanson, Statskontoret, är mycket besviken på myndigheternas agerande. Nu ligger många av dem riktigt illa till. Undrar om folk i allmänhet inser vilket kaos som kan (eller rättare sagt troligtvis kommer) utbryta vid årsskiftet. Och hur svårt det kommer att vara för myndigheterna att åtgärda fel när de väl har inträffat. Det kommer att ta tid. Och det vill verkligen till att inga andra störningar i samhället inträffar, såsom avbrott i el-, tele- och vattenförsörjning. I så fall... ja, tänk själv... Det här är från IDG:
2000-arbetet underkänns (1999-07-02 10:00)
Rikspolisstyrelsen, Centrala studiestödsnämnden, Generaltullstyrelsen och Patent- och registreringsverket riskerar att få stora problem vid övergången till år 2000. Det konstaterar Statskontoret i sin senaste lägesrapport om 2000-anpassningen bland svenska myndigheter. Ytterligare 56 av landets 108 myndigheter har inte klarat att bli färdiga med 2000-anpassningen till den 1 juni, det vill säga den tidpunkt som regeringen satt upp som färdigdatum för svenska myndigheter. Statskontoret tror nu att läget är så illa att myndigheterna inte hinner bli färdiga med allt, utan att de tvingas prioritera. Men även om Statskontoret är kritiska i sin rapport uppger de myndigheter som ligger sämst till att läget är under kontroll. Skjutit fram färdigdatum
Thorgil Thornqvist är chef för teknikcentrum på RPS.
Som en extra försiktighetsåtgärd har RPS inlett en anpassning av det gamla systemet Pbr, Person- och belastningsregister. Men även här är marginalerna obefintliga. 22 december ska anpassningen av PBR vara klar. Thorgil Thornqvist uppger att de andra 60-talet system som finns inom polisen genomgått full testning, men att en del inte driftsatts än. Men att arbetet ändå ser ut att gå i hamn. Byter ut återbetalningssystem
Marianne Svanberg är CSNs 2000-samordnare.
- Vi har lite resurser och haft sen klartidpunkt hela tiden. Vi räknar ändå med att gå i mål, säger Marianne Svanberg. Inga tecken på problem
Patent- och Registeringsverket tvingas flytta färdigdatum från augusti till skiftet oktober/november.
Anledningen är hela systemet för bolagsregistret byts ut, det så kallade Bolit.
Hårdare tag
- 2000-arbetet har under flera år präglats av att man säger sig vara klar vid en viss tidpunkt och sedan inte är det. Ett tydligt tecken på detta är att många myndigheter inte är klara med anpassningen till 1 juni, säger Anders Johanson. Förskönande bild
En annan bidragande orsak är att myndigheterna gärna ger en förskönande bild av anpassningen till omgivningen, samtidigt som det är svårt att som utomstående få tillräckligt god inblick i arbetet. Dessutom anser han att myndigheter som satsat på att byta ut system i stället för att anpassa gamla varit överoptimistiska i sin planering. Kritik mot myndigheter
Anders Johanson anser också att detta är en bidragande orsak till att 56 av 108 myndigheter inte hann bli färdiga med 2000-anpassningen till och med den 1 juni, det vill säga den tidpunkt som regeringen satt som slutdatum för myndigheternas 2000-anpassning. Trots detta uppger flera av de myndigheter som ligger sämst till att läget är under kontroll. Pressmeddelandet går att läsa på Statskontorets hemsida och rapporten i sin helhet kan öppnas i pdf-format. |
| 1999-07-03 | CIA Y2K Map |
Följ länken! Klicka runt på de olika länderna och läs CIA:s bedömning av 2000-effekterna. Om Japan kan vi t ex läsa: Interruptions
to
imports/exports
and oil
shortages will
be isolated but
severe.
Interruptions
of government
services will be
severe.
"Svåra" störningar av import och export. "Oljebrist". Hur länge? Ja, så som CIA uttrycker sig så har jag svårt att tolka störningarna som att de "bara" skulle vara några dagar. Om en störning är "allvarlig", bör den vara utdragen. Tänk sedan på aktiemarknaden. Fallhöjden både i Nikkei och Dow Jones är hårresande. Och när man läser CIA:s kommentarer om Ryssland, Kina och Japan har man ännu mindre förståelse för de som gladeligen placerar riskkapital i Asien-fonder. Well, it's their loss... |
| 1999-07-03 | Inte alltid Y2K-patchar fungerar - ger dessutom ofta upphov till nya problem |
There's no guarantee Y2K patches will work
Currently, the most frequent source of speculation and litigation regarding the Year 2000 problem is the now commonly encountered Y2K software "patch." Y2K patches are not necessarily a solution -- they are often the cause of further problems. A software patch is a portion of computer code designed to be incorporated into existing software applications to correct erroneous code that produces "bugs." |
| 1999-07-03 | Testning grund för stämning |
Om företaget inte gör det riskerar företaget stämning. Om företaget gör det och testet misslyckas riskerar företaget också rättegång. Kan bli dyrt att slarva med testerna... Det här är från London Free Press.
Testing is part of a due diligence exercise to ensure those aspects of an organization's operations which may be impacted by failures due to Y2K are put through a simulation exercise to confirm that everything will work properly as the date rolls over to January 1, 2000 or to determine if systems accommodate the year 2000 as a leap year. What many organizations may not recognize is the potential for Y2K tests to cause damage and, therefore, result in claims against the organization. |
| 1999-07-03 | Deadlines skjuts framåt |
Nya Zeeland ska enligt Gartner Group vara bland de främsta i världen i fråga om arbete mot 2000-säkring. I så fall är situationen minst sagt mörk, globalt sett. En rapport från Nya Zeeland:
Several key industries are now pushing their Year 2000-ready dates out to the final quarter, CHRIS BARTON reports. Deadlines for fixing the Year 2000 electronic date change problem are sliding. That's the worrying finding from the Y2K Readiness Commission's latest business sector survey which shows a significant number of large businesses have revised their timetables. "Businesses have underestimated the complexity of this problem and as they get into the testing phase they're finding it takes longer. It requires more management focus and resource," said commission chairman Basil Logan. The trend was most marked in large business: only 43 per cent now expected to have their computer systems ready in the April-June timeframe compared with 54 per cent that expected to meet that deadline when the question was asked in February. A similar slippage - 25 per cent now, versus 37 per cent then - was also evident for when business expected to fix date-aware embedded chips in other machinery. The deadline creep has pushed large business completion dates out to the July-September (35 per cent) and the October-December quarters (26 per cent). Several key industries including telecommunications, electricity, hospital and oil sectors - previously more optimistic about their finish dates - were now showing Y2K readiness would not occur until the last quarter. Mr Logan said the April survey highlighted infrastructure concerns that were only just beginning to be addressed. In the telecommunications sector, for example, Telecom was "well advanced" but cooperation with other telcos in addressing the interconnected nature of the problem was late. In the electricity sector there were concerns that some of the new line companies may not have sufficient Y2K resources. Mr Logan was dismayed that some 35,000 small businesses (17 per cent) still had not begun fixing the problem, and that half of all businesses - mostly in the small to medium sector - did not think they needed a business continuity plan. "We are not articulating it well enough. They don't know what we're talking about - that this is a question about managing business risk, not just fixing computers." He said more direct surveys with small business groups, including electricians and GPs, had shown they did not understand the interconnected nature of the Y2K problem - especially in relation to what steps could be taken if supplies could not be delivered or if there were disruptions to essential services. Surprisingly, 25 per cent of accountants surveyed say they did not need a business continuity plan. [Vilket är helt ofattbart när hela förtagets fortsatta verksamhet står på spel!] Mr Good said the commission was addressing the lack of understanding through more detailed business risk templates, which would be distributed through trade associations. More communication between sectors was necessary too. Many respondents, for example, were not confident of continuity of water supply. |
| 1999-07-03 | Computer Weekly ifrågasätter framstegsrapporter |
Den här artikeln närmast bekräftar mina farhågor att den bild som företagen själva skapat om att de skulle vara nära 2000-säkring i många fall bara är en fasad. Jag lägger ut den i sin helhet:
New Y2K survey throws doubt on Government assurances The latest survey of the UK's big firms reveals a critical lack of preparation for Y2K. Bill Goodwin reports The ability of Britain's business infrastructure to survive the millennium bug has been thrown into doubt by a detailed survey of the UK's top 1,000 companies. The survey, by London law firm Dibb Lupton Alsop and pressure group Taskforce 2000, reveals that as many as 20% of Britain's biggest firms have yet to complete the first step in their year 2000 programmes. The findings raise serious questions over assurances from Downing Street andgovernment watchdog Action 2000 that the FTSE 500 companies are well advanced with their Y2K work. If the 174 firms surveyed are representative of the nation as a whole, the millennium bug could have significant knock-on effects for the economy, jobs and business confidence. "About 300 of the UK's largest businesses appear to be playing Russian roulette with the millennium bug. Many of those companies are unlikely to make it [!!!] and the prospect of serious disruption is a reality," said Taskforce 2000 director Robin Guenier. The survey shows that a worrying proportion of companies did not start work on their year 2000 programmes until last year. And, if spending on Y2K is an accurate measure of their progress, many of these firms still have a long way to go. Just over 33% have spent more than 80% of their budgets and only 40% have completed or are close to completing their compliance work. Embedded chips Of more concern is the fact that 20% of companies have yet to complete their embedded chip inventories. Without this companies will not know whether their production machines, buildings, safety systems and other electronic devices will function in 2000. And 10% of companies are still working on inventories of their central IT systems, servers and telecommunications systems. Progress on other stages of Y2K work is just as patchy. Between 30% and 40% of firms have yet to complete remediation work, the second stage of their year 2000 programmes. Only 50% have completed the third and fourth stages - testing and implementation. The biggest problem for IT managers is not so much the readiness of their company's IT systems, but the readiness of their key suppliers and customers. Failures by suppliers could halt production just as effectively as a year 2000 bug on the production line. Earlier this year, Computer Weekly reported on concerns by the agricultural equipment manufacturer Agco that 80% of its suppliers were not on track to be year 2000 compliant. Like Agco, most businesses have now quizzed their suppliers and customers. Yet only about 40% say they have had satisfactory replies. About a third have yet to receive satisfactory assurances about the performance of their key computer systems from IT suppliers. Contingency plans If there is one bright note in this cloudy survey, it is that nearly all companies are aiming to have contingency plans in place by the end of the year. What troubles Taskforce 2000, however, is that 14% have limited those plans to the millennium weekend. This reveals some flawed thinking. Non-compliant systems are unlikely to fail en masse on 1 January 2000. Instead we are likely to see a continuum of failures in the run-up to 2000 and throughout the following year. Firms that do not plan for this are leaving themselves exposed. More disturbingly, 6% of firms have no plans to deal with external disruption, such as failure of suppliers, power cuts, or transport problems. Rather than welcoming Dibb Lupton's research, official reaction to its findings has been dismissive. Interviewed on the BBC's Money Programme, Gwynneth Flower, managing director of Action 2000, said her organisations much more comprehensive research shows that Britain's big companies are well on track [?]to be compliant. This assumption lies at the heart of UK Government policy on the millennium problem, and has led to Action 2000 focusing all its work on small- and medium-sized companies. But Action 2000's research has itself been called into question. Six months ago the watchdog issued a press release claiming that 90% of Britain's top companies were on track to be compliant. When, after requests by Computer Weekly, Action 2000 released the figures behind this conclusion, they painted, at best, an inconclusive picture. A survey of the FTSE 500 companies released into the public domain by Action 2000 months later, on the other hand, showed that 20% had not completed the first stage of their programmes. That was six months ago, and of course, in that time, Action 2000 will have improved its research methods and big businesses will have made significant progress with their year 2000 programmes. But, if Dibb Lupton's survey contains even a scintilla of truth, then dismissing it out of hand cannot be a serious option. VAR ÄR DENNA DEBATT I SVERIGE??? |
| 1999-07-03 | Computer Weekly: "Brittiska storföretag efter tidsplanen" |
Millennium work behind
schedule
Concerns over corporate UK's year 2000 readiness have resurfaced with the publication of a survey showing that more than half of the country's top 1,000 companies have not completed their millennium preparations. The study, carried out by Business Strategies on behalf of watchdog Taskforce 2000 and law firm Dibb Lupton Alsop, found that only 43% of respondents have completed or nearly completed their technical compliance programmes across all systems, while 19% have not even completed the first stage of their programmes. Taskforce 2000 boss Robin Guenier says the findings indicate the extent to which the UK is at risk of disruption. "It could mean a significant knock-on effect for the whole economy in terms of growth, jobs and confidence. The situation becomes more critical with each day that passes," he says. "The critical need now is for Government and business leaders to recognise the danger, and to take emergency action to offset it." Even where companies have their own systems ready they face disruption from suppliers, the survey suggests. Only 43% of those that have investigated the status of suppliers said they were satisfied with what they found. |
| 1999-07-03 | Tänk vad man kan få fram om man tar sig tid att gräva lite... | Den 30 juni, 1999, var det datum som den amerikanska kraftsektorn (bestående av 7800+ olika företag som på något sätt är en del av den amerikanska energiförsörjningen) skulle vara 100% 2000-säkrat. Eller i engelska termer: "Y2K compliant". Inte "ready", utan "compliant". Y2knewswire har jämfört pressreleaser från kraftbolagen. Dels verkar många (alla?) ha anlitat samma PR-firma eftersom pressreleaserna är så likartade, dels säger ingen att de är "fully y2k-compliant", utan de använder ord som "expect", "believe" och "interruptions unlikely". "Y2K ready" är också en populär term. Inga garantier alltså. |
| 1999-07-03 | Brittiska y2k-problem |
Det här är från Daily Telegraph.
THE Millennium bug is at the root of the Passport Agency's struggle to issue thousands of passports. Taskforce 2000, an independent Millennium bug watchdog, uncovered the problem, believed to be the first high-profile computer failure caused by the inability of many computers to process dates occurring beyond the end of this year to come to light. Ian Hugo, assistant director of Taskforce 2000, said: "We have been warning that it will be the cumulative effect of several factors rather than a single event that will cause a Millennium bug failure. This is now proof of those predictions." |