*** Intel Speaks ***
From Andrew Grove comments in The Washington Post:
>> The federal government faces an "ugly" situation if it
does not step up efforts to correct the year 2000
programming error in its agencies' computers, the head
of the world's largest chipmaker said yesterday.
Andrew S. Grove, chief executive of Intel Corp., gave an
assessment far more pessimistic than is commonly heard
from Silicon Valley executives. Congress should convene
weekly hearings with each branch of government, he said,
to discuss how they are attacking the problem, which
threatens to drive computers haywire when the 1990s end.
By the end of this year, he said, each agency should
have to have a plan in place to deal with the problem;
in 1999, as the critical year approaches, their systems
should be thoroughly tested. If this is not done, Grove
said, the government has "no chance" of any meaningful
compliance.
Meeting yesterday with Washington Post reporters and
editors, Grove said he put this proposal yesterday to a
U.S. senator whom he declined to identify publicly. On
hearing it, the senator "blanched because they are so
far away," Grove said, adding that his own corporation
is spending about 20 percent of its information
technology budget on correcting year 2000 problems.
"The problem's going to be pretty bad," Grove said.
John Koskinen, who chairs the president's council on
year 2000 conversion, disputed Grove's assessment,
saying the government will be prepared. He recently
finished meeting with officials from 40 government
agencies to discuss the problem. "Based on these
meetings, I am confident that all of the
mission-critical systems of the government will function
effectively," Koskinen said.<<
washingtonpost.com
Regards,
Bond |
