I will admit I have not read the bill so if some one has, please
comment. That said, I do not believe the bill will eliminate
litigation. Boards of Directors will get sued for not being ready.
Companies will get sued for the same reason. What they are trying to
do is eliminate suits due to non-disclosure. But even if you conduct
your business including Y2K remediation with full disclosure that does
not absolve management and boards from incompetence. IBM's Y2K
strategy is not fool-proof but is as good as it gets. You have to go
back to the mid-80s to the 308X and 43XX to find non-compliant
hardware that will not be fixed. The same is true with much of the
software. But what is key is that IBM has been telling everyone for
years that this problem exists, which products it exists on, and how
to migrate out of the problem. IBM has been publishing this on the
Internet, writing letters to customers, notifying customers that these
products were discontinued from marketing years ago and if they
havent been withdrawn from software service or hardware maintenance
agreement service yet they will be by 12/31/99 at the latest. So if
you are a customer who is affected and have not taken action then a
compelling case could be made in front of any jury or judge that this
plaintiff is truly derelict in their duties of running their business
and in fact, this plaintiff could end up getting sued by it's own
shareholders for mismanagement. So it is a two edged sword, this
concept of going out and suing IBM or anyone else for Y2K problems.
For Jules, I hope that you realize that if IBM takes it in the neck
for Y2k, as you propose in your post, then every other tech
company including all those other ones you own could effectively be
much worse off since IBM's competitors have been far more silent on
this issue and therefore, in my mind far more exposed. If Y2K craters
the techs, as I have suggested could happen in a number of other posts
due to data center freezes of software and hardware in 2H99, then we
should all consider being cash players at some point next year and
into the new year. Anyway, some thoughts while we wait for earnings. |
