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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NickSE who wrote (6225)	7/1/1999 12:42:00 PM
From: bearcub	Respond to of 9818

let's hear it for Kansas, in the land of OOs

To: NickSE who wrote (6225)	7/1/1999 12:52:00 PM
From: C.K. Houston	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9818

BLOOMBERG: Utilities Say They're Y2K Ready, Though Blackouts Expected Washington, June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Most U.S. utilities said today that their power plants and transmission lines are ''Y2K ready,'' though experts still expect some power failures when the New Year comes. Utilities were asked to report their level of ''readiness'' to the North American Electric Reliability Council today. While a full report on the results won't be ready until July 29, dozens of utilities declared their success at finding and eliminating the Millennium bug. Electric utilities spent billions of dollars over the past several years to prepare for the day when aging computer and analog systems can't determine whether the digits ''00'' represent the year 1900 or 2000. They've been upgrading and testing components of power plants and distribution systems, and setting up contingency plans in case of failures. ''Utilities are scared,'' said Cameron Daley, chief operating officer of Framingham, Massachusetts-based Tava/R.W. Beck, which tested and upgraded systems for more than 100 U.S. utilities. ''The whole grid won't collapse, but there will be outages that could last up to several weeks.'' [FYI - R.W. Beck has planned, designed and developed electric power generating, transmission, and distribution facilities since 1942. They specialize in providing engineering services to electric utilities, particularly in the area of risk assessment and planning. They have over 1,000 customers. In March '98 they formed a joint venture with systems integrator, TAVA Technologies.] While no utility has guaranteed there won't be blackouts Jan. 1, industry groups said utilities are doing everything they can to prevent problems, including preparing for the worst. ''We believe Y2K won't be a problem,'' said Eugene Gorzelnik, a spokesman for the council. ''There will be a huge backlash if a utility reports it's Y2K ready, and it turns out that it wasn't.'' Edison International's Southern California Edison utility, which has spent $72 million on Y2K preparation, said it plans to dispatch an extra 500 employees on New Year's Eve. Wisconsin Energy Corp.'s Wisconsin Electric Power Co. plans to have as much as 50 percent more electricity available than it normally needs at that time of year. Still, deregulation has pushed utilities to cut labor and other costs, and those that are deepest in negotiations with regulators haven't been as focused on preventing problems related to the millennium bug, Daley said. ''The utilities most distracted by deregulation aren't doing enough to identify and prevent problems,'' Daley said. ''There are a number of instances where utilities didn't go deep enough into their systems -- they accepted vendors' words that parts of a system were compliant.'' Even if a utility corrects all the problems in its own system, power still may be cut off to their customers. That's because U.S. and Canadian power lines connect all utilities, and when one utility system breaks down, it could cause problems for others. ''We cannot provide warranties (against blackouts) because our readiness depends in part on other parties,'' said Samuel Manno, director of Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.'s Y2K project. At the trade council's suggestion, utilities agreed to conduct the first major test of the entire power systems' ability to properly recognize dates beyond 1999 on September 9. ''We hope to learn what still needs to be done at that point and correct any glitches before they happen,'' Gorzelnik said. ======================================================== SEPT 9: NATIONWIDE TEST OF ENTIRE NORTH AMERICAN ELECTRICAL SYSTEM "The September 9, 1999 drill is expected to be a dress rehearsal for rollover from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000. This drill may include reducing planned outages, modified committment of resources, redispatch of generation and transmission loading, cooperation with electric market participants, and staffing of all critical facilities. The goal would be to simulate system conditions and operating plans for the Y2K transition as closely as possible without increasing risks to personnel and equipment safety or system operating security." NERC: ftp://www.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/drills.pdf Cheryl

To: NickSE who wrote (6225)	7/1/1999 7:47:00 PM
From: Jim	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

States Face Early Y2K Test Thursday I'm waiting breathlessly to hear of all the problems.

To: NickSE who wrote (6225)	7/5/1999 12:39:00 PM
From: NickSE	Respond to of 9818

The economist concluded that there is an ever-increasing chance that vital government services will be "delayed, disrupted, pared, and curtailed" in 2000. Yardeni posits that this precarious situation implies that foreign governments, as well as many business organizations around the world, may fail to meet the deadline too, causing expansive shutdowns of key international infrastructures and communications facilities. "In January, I visited with institutional money managers in nine European cities. I saw about 1000 of them and received 88 responses to a survey I asked them to complete. One of the questions was: "Will most European companies be ready for the century date change?" Half of my respondents answered yes, the rest were negative. I also inquired if they expected that European governments will be ready. An astonishing 74% said no." "Next time someone tells you that they've 1) identified their mission critical systems; 2) are fixing the ones that are noncompliant; and 3) expect to finish testing in time to implement them before January 1, 2000, ask them to tell you about their noncompliant noncritical systems that won't be fixed and are expected to blow up starting on that fateful date." "This is Titanic America," Yardeni says. "Everyone said the Titanic was the wonder of the age back then, and it was." Mr. Yardeni compared the current economy to Titanic, the "unsinkable" ocean liner that was done in partly by defective rivets and steel. "Think of the computer as the rivets of our economy," he said, warning that it will be as easy to fix the year 2000 bug "as trying to change all the rivets on Titanic while it was going full speed ahead in the middle of the Atlantic." "In the old days, miners took a canary in a bird cage along to work as an early warning system against poisonous gases. If the bird croaked, it was time to get out of the mine. Similarly, let's keep track of IT professionals for an early warning that Y2K could be lethal. Recently, key IT experts have announced that they will leave the FAA, IRS and Department of Defense (at least 6 senior Y2K staffers). Arthur Gross, the Chief Information Officer of the Internal Revenue Service, left on April 1 of this year. He first joined the IRS in March 1996." And although a lot of systems will be repaired before the crucial date, he is convinced there isn't enough time left -- or apparent political will -- to fix all the bugs around the world, no matter how much money is thrown at the problem. ------ Edward Yardeni ------ Chief Economist, Deutsche Morgan Grenfield, Deutsche Bank Securities, formerly with Federal Reserve. kenraggio.com

To: NickSE who wrote (6225)	7/5/1999 12:41:00 PM
From: NickSE	Respond to of 9818

"The trouble is that there is a perversity of incentive in this type of problem in that you can be extremely scrupulous in going through every single line of code in all of your computer operations, make all the adjustments that are required, and get essentially a system, whether you are a bank or an industrial corporation, and say we have solved the 2000 problem, and then find that when the date arrives, all of the interconnects that are now built in start to break down. So, it's not an issue of getting--of being worried that there is a large number of non-compliers who haven't gone through the system.... We, nonetheless, have such a large, high degree of uncertainty about what actually is out there that we cannot but employ very substantial amount of resources to find means to reduce the probability of the inevitable difficulties that are going to emerge." "We do not know or cannot really realistically make an evaluation of what the economic impact is as a consequence of the breakdowns that may occur. We do not know the size. We do not know the contagion and interaction within the system. And we do not know how rapidly we can resolve the problem." "For example, we had a very major bank in the city of New York a number of years ago, whose computer went out. And the New York Federal Reserve Bank had to lend them over $20 billion overnight. Now, if we weren't there, I can tell you that the system would have been in very serious difficulty. So, part of what we are trying to do is figure out what we can do to assuage whatever problems might arise. And that it's a difficult exercise because there is such a huge element of uncertainty in the nature of the problem itself. But we are trying to come to grips with it as best we can...." ------ Alan Greenspan ------ Chairman, Federal Reserve kenraggio.com