Millennium bug rashes surface in UK
By AK Dhar
LONDON: The millennium time bomb feared by scientists to wreck havoc as the world switches over to the year 2000 may have already detonated, with a rash of cases being reported daily in the United Kingdom.
Some of Britain's major companies including Shell, supermarket chain Tesco, TSB Bank and Rover Motor Car Company have reportedly been hit by the bug that stops computers recognising the year 2000.
Experts are warning that hundreds of companies worldwide may be facing similar crises, but may be keeping a lid on them.
The first warnings of what a millennium time bomb may have in store have come out with the Rover car factory refusing to issue warranties for vehicles beyond the millennium as the company's main computer refused to acknowledge the switchover.
Similarly, Tesco refused to accept goods from a supplier because the computer thought the 2000 expiry date meant it was old stock.
''Hundreds of companies are discovering that their software is unable to cope with orders in the next century,'' media reports said, adding that even senior executives of major British banks were saying that they would withdraw all their savings before the switchover as banks and other financial institutions would be the worst-hit.
Times quoted a prominent computer consultant as saying that a lot of companies were now updating their systems because things were going wrong. ''Everyone thinks this will be just a problem to strike at the midnight of December 31, 1999, but it is already here,'' he said.
Computer experts had started warning about the millennium bug in 1990, but it is only in recent months that the world appears to be waking up to the danger the time bomb may wreck.
Political and business leaders have only now started to admit the scale of the problem which, experts say, should cost anything upto $ 500 billion for rectification.
The problems are arising as most of the computers are treating the year 2000 as 1900, or shutting down the system completely when a switchover is referred.
Experts say a 2000 shutdown could cause a worldwide disaster, with patients dying in hospitals as equipment fails, power cuts leading to a stock market collapse and telecommunications chaos.
British prime minister Tony Blair last week chaired a high-level meeting of over 2,000 experts and business leaders to bring them alive to the mayhem that may strike.
Tesco spokeswomen Karen Marshall said, ''We only realised we had a problem, when we had some canned food delivered with an expiry date for 2000. The computer wanted to send it back to the supplier because it thought it had been packed at the end of the last century and so well may have been out of date. We now have a major problem to make sure all our systems cope with the changeover.''
TSB Bank officials were hit when they tried to work out five- year forecasts. ''The computer thought it was looking at a 95-year plan, from 1900 to 1995, rather than a five-year plan to 2000,'' a top TSB executive was quoted as saying.
At Shell, media reports said exploration and production computers that kept servicing records of onshore and offshore rigs would not accept the year 2000, when it was input as future servicing date.
Four major British banks--Barclays, Midland, Natwest and Lloyds, and TSB have earmarked over a billion pounds for finding a solution, while the government plans to spend 97 million pounds to help fight it.
Meanwhile, consumers are also suffering rejection of some credit cards with expiry dates after 2000, from cashpoints, petrol stations and shops.
Leading credit card companies, including American Express, have delayed issuing cards for the new millennium, while they eliminate the bug.(PTI) |
