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Non-Tech : The Y2K Newspaper -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Ounce who wrote (129)	10/25/1999 10:33:00 AM
From: Bill Ounce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 198

USA Today-- Firms stand ready for Y2K usatoday.com By Paul Davidson, USA TODAY First Data President Charlie Fote will be on the hot seat New Year's Eve, but he should be resting easy. He's confident his firm, which processes most of the nation's credit-card transactions, has fixed computers to minimize risks from the Year 2000 bug. So why is he a little jittery? It's not that he frets First Data's computers will go haywire. His concern is the minuscule chance that electricity could hit the fritz. Not only has Fote lined up backup power generators at the company's five data centers worldwide, he'll have trucks of diesel fuel stationed outside the buildings in case the generators run dry. At the Denver center, the fuel truck will be parked at the police station next door to discourage any power-starved Y2K lunatics from swiping it. "We'll be moving a long weekend's worth of transactions," Fote says, noting that New Year's Day falls on Saturday. "We'll be on the spot." Now that most large U.S. companies have completed repairs of the millennium bug, they are honing contingency plans -- just in case glitches occur. Most involve dress rehearsals and command centers to monitor operations and get critical feedback from overseas offices that hit 2000 first. They are training technicians to rapidly fix problems, readying backup systems and assigning representatives to take calls around the clock. The upshot: Tens of thousands of people will be working New Year's weekend instead of partying. Vacations have been banned for most information-technology workers from mid-December to mid-January. "Frankly, these employees are missing one of the biggest celebrations of their lives," says Matt McClure, head of Year 2000 efforts for Southern Co., the USA's largest power company. The Y2K bug stems from most computers being programmed to recognize two-digit dates. Some could malfunction by reading "00" as 1900. With most businesses confident they have repaired date-sensitive software and computer chips, their "what if" efforts could add up to an anticlimactic worldwide fire drill. Still, "It's only prudent," says Irene Dec, Y2K coordinator for Prudential, the largest insurance company. "You've got to be prepared for some event that's absolutely unexpected." About 12% to 15% of the $200 billion in U.S. firms' Y2K expenditures is devoted to contingency efforts, says technology consultant Howard Rubin of Rubin Systems. Virtually every Fortune 500 company is establishing a war room with electronic maps, phone banks, TV monitors and PCs. [...]