orlandosentinel.com
User beware -- Y2K compliance claims could be bogus
Richard Burnett
of The Sentinel Staff
Published in The Orlando Sentinel on July 1, 1999.
People may lie about age, money and sex, but one of the biggest fibs plaguing
corporate America today is a lie about Y2K readiness.
Many businesses are being misled -- in some cases, 50 percent of the time --
when they try to find out if their computers are prepared for the so-called
millennium bug, Y2K consultants say.
Beware, they say, when a company sticks a shiny "Y2K-compliant" sticker on your
PC or otherwise promises there'll be no problem when Jan. 1 arrives.
Check it out yourself, the experts say. The claim could be bogus.
"Unfortunately, such misrepresentations by vendors can be pervasive," said Art
Filip, lead Y2K consultant for IBM Global Service, based in Orlando. "Too many
are lying to say for legal reasons they are Y2K compliant.
"It's causing big trouble now, and after everybody finds out the real truth,
there's going to be a major shakeup in a lot of business relationships because
of the economic impact."
The Y2K problem is rooted in flawed programming that can cause many computers
to confuse the year 2000 with 1900 or some other year. Left uncorrected, the
problem could trigger widespread failures or error-riddled data.
Government and industry have launched a multibillion-dollar effort to
re-program and prepare their computers for the date change on Jan. 1.
In Florida, the chairman of a governor's Y2K task force said many businesses
have complained about the growing number of false Y2K-compliance claims.
"In some cases, we've been told the Y2K lying rate is as high as 50 percent,"
said Tom McGurk, who is also secretary of the Department of Management
Services.
BellSouth Corp., for example, told state officials that more than half of the
compliance claims by its vendors turned out to be incorrect when they were
independently tested, he said.
Such reports follow a state law passed last month that limits liability suits
involving Y2K-related computer failures and a move on the federal level to do
the same.
Shrugging off last-minute White House concerns, House lawmakers on Wednesday
agreed to bring a bill limiting Y2K lawsuits to the floor today for certain
passage. The Senate also could approve the legislation today.
The federal bill would give companies 90 days to fix Y2K-related problems
before lawsuits could be filed. It also would set punitive damage caps for
small businesses, make it harder to file class-action lawsuits and states that,
in most cases, a defendant would be held liable only for the proportion of
damage it causes.
Critics, including trial lawyers and consumer groups, say the state and federal
laws favor big business and hurt consumers by creating extreme barriers to
lawsuits. Those barriers on a state level include requiring proof of
exorbitantly high monetary damages before a suit can be filed.
"It provides a whole new level of defense for these kinds of suits," said Jim
Page, an Orlando lawyer focused on Y2K issues. "It sets the bar so high for
what you have to prove, it can only be an invitation to lie about Y2K
compliance."
But supporters of legal restrictions say they will help prevent frivolous
lawsuits and save billions of dollars in unnecessary litigation. The incidence
of so-called "Y2K lying" is being exaggerated, they said.
"Lying about the compliance status of your products is certainly not the way to
maintain customer relationships," said Bob Cohen, vice president of the
Information Technology Association of America, a Washington trade group. "It
flies in the face of reason to say that many are doing that. I'm sure there are
some bad actors out there, but it is not representative of the industry."
But a number of businesses in Central Florida disagree, saying they are having
problems with claims.
"I've had a lot problems with some of the answers I get," said Phil Hamilton,
office administrator and Y2K coordinator for Gurney & Handley, an Orlando law
firm. "Sometimes they just don't check out. Now I've learned to be cynical from
the start, and the easy answers are the ones I distrust the most."
Most small businesses don't have enough money to test vendors' Y2K-compliance
claims, he said. But they can ask questions, do research and learn from the
experience of other businesses that use the same computers, Hamilton said.
Lockheed Martin Corp., for example, has the resources to independently test all
vendor claims.
"In some areas, we've had vendors say all their systems are compliant, but when
we delved deeper, we found out they weren't when combined with other
third-party systems," Lockheed spokeswoman Elaine Hinsdale said. "So, yes, we
have had to address those issues." |
