To: Ken Salaets who wrote (6182 ) 6/27/1999 4:35:00 PM From: C.K. Houston Read Replies (2) | Respond to
IN TODAY'S SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWSBy Claude M. Stern, partner in the Palo Alto law firm of Fenwick & West But the Y2K bug has been known for years by everyone in the technology industry, so the problem should have been entirely avoidable, right? Wrong. Most people in the industry -- programmers, users and computer science faculty -- weren't aware of the problem until the last few years. They had no reason to change a long-time programming convention even though restricted capacity -- the reason only two digits were originally used to identify years -- was no longer a problem ... Most technology products are sold subject to warranty disclaimers. Whether you're talking about a Sears toaster or Microsoft's latest software title, most products are sold subject to a warranty disclaimer or limitation. The warranty may be 60 days, 90 days, or 3 years (for cars), but inevitably manufacturers limit the period of time during which they warrant that a product will operate for the product's intended purpose. If the product fails the day after the warranty expires, then, in the absence of any express promises or representations made by the manufacturer concerning the future performance of that product, the manufacturer has no liability whatsoever. Is this good policy? Sure it is. If Ford had perpetual liability for the sale of each of its cars, it wouldn't sell them for $18,000; it would sell them for $150,000. Warranty disclaimers allow the interests of the consumer in acquiring goods at a reasonable price to be balanced against the manufacturer's interest in limiting its exposure for the sale of less-than-perfect but functional products.Some think it's unfair that a technology company would sell a product that it knows has a year 2000 bug (or any other bug for that matter)and not disclose that bug to the customer at the time of sale. But then, when was the last time the telephone company disclosed to you all the conditions under which long-distance service is likely to be slower or fail altogether? ...mercurycenter.com
