Y2K Bug "a minor inconvenience" - Gates.
BOGOTA (Reuters)
>For most people, the millennium bug should prove to be no more than ''a minor inconvenience,'' according to Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Chairman Bill Gates.
Some industry experts have made dire predictions about Y2K, or the problems that will erupt if computer systems are unable to read the year 2000 correctly.
But Gates, in an interview published Monday in Colombia's weekly news magazine Semana, said, ''It won't be as catastrophic as some people suggest.''
He acknowledged that people in some countries were likely to suffer more of an impact than others, since the state of readiness and information technology were far from uniform worldwide.
But Gates, who stressed that many of Microsoft's own products offer a solution to the problem of how older computers keep track of years, played down any cataclysmic threat.
''Some countries will have more problems than others with the arrival of the year 2000, but for most of us it will only be a minor inconvenience,'' he said.
''The most important thing is that people in the area of information technology ... should remember that there's still time to solve the problem,'' Gates was quoted as saying.
''But the time to start -- if you haven't already done so -- is now.''<
Was he under oath? |
