USA Today -- Feds concerned about Y2K progress
usatoday.com
[...]
Everybody is guessing how bad it will be, including me," says Sen. Robert Bennett,
R-Utah, who will chair Senate hearings today on what corporations are doing to avert
crippling computer crashes. "And no one will find out until New Year's Day 2000 or a
week or two afterward."
[...]
This is Titanic America," Yardeni says. "Everyone said the Titanic was the wonder
of the age back then, and it was."
Now scientists say what sank the Titanic were brittle, defective rivets, the unseen,
smallest component of the otherwise unsinkable ship, ripped loose by an iceberg.
"Today's computers are the rivets of our booming economy," Yardeni says. "We're
steaming along at full speed, through the waters of the Atlantic. There's an iceberg
ahead, and we're feasting on the upper deck enjoying the good times."
[...]
Investors in the dark
At Wednesday's hearing, Triaxsys CEO Steve Hock says he will tell the Senate
subcommittee that "you cannot discern anything meaningful about the progress of half
the top 250 U.S. corporations from those SEC filings."
[...]
Peter de Jager, perhaps the first consultant to raise the specter of Y2K catastrophe
with major U.S. corporations, offered some hope at a symposium last week.
"Between now and Jan. 1, 2000, the kind of mobilization, like the Manhattan Project
will happen," he predicts. "The only question is are we smart enough to do it sooner
rather than later." |
