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

To: John Mansfield who wrote (1861)	5/17/1998 2:28:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

[TESTING] NRF on (the lack of) testing 'http://www2.computerworld.com/home/cwlaunch.nsf/launch?ReadForm&/home/online 9697.nsf/$defaultview/2BD70621514418FA852565F60057ABE3 [snip] (Year 2000 news, 04/30/98 12:13:06 PM) Retailers focus on Y2K non-testers Allan E. Alter Gaps in year 2000 testing -- or no audits at all -- create the potential for system failures. And that risk spurred a National Retail Federation (NRF) official to issue a warning earlier this week about possible power outages, dead phone lines and banks that can't process employee payroll. He made the comments during a session held at the NRF's Supply Chain & Operations Management Conference in Austin, Texas. Washington-based NRF bills itself as the world's largest retail trade association; Donald M. Gilbert, its senior vice president of information technology, is acting as the retail industry's year 2000 early-warning system. He and his staff are tracking year 2000 preparations among industries and agencies that support retailers, including the electrical, telecommunications and banking industries; local port authorities; and the U.S. Customs office. Although Gilbert wouldn't specify whom he and his staff have contacted, he said NRF sources in these industries include the Federal Communications Commission, the Electric Power Research Institute and AT&T Corp. He also said concerns about the telecommunications industry's handling of year 2000 fixes were voiced by a Federal Reserve Board official in testimony on Tuesday before the Senate Commerce Committee. Regarding the telecommunications industry, Gilbert told the panel that his research found that local exchange carriers aren't conducting "interoperability or interaction testing" with long-distance carriers, Internet service providers, competitive access providers or other telecommunications networks. Although lack of testing doesn't mean connections are certain to fail, it does raise a red flag, Gilbert said. Rural areas may be hit with spot phone and electrical outages, Gilbert said. Old switches used by thousands of small rural telecommunications cooperatives and companies are one culprit. Gilbert said that electric utilities don't plan to conduct a nationwide test of the U.S. electric grid, and that raises the risk of failure, particularly for rural electric cooperatives. The NRF wants to find out where outages are likely to occur, so that members can plan ahead for potential problems. State-chartered banks are another industry segment that the NRF is watching carefully. Although government regulators are auditing year 2000 efforts at large banks, they aren't required to do this for state-chartered banks. These banks haven't been as aggressive as their larger brethren in attacking the millennium bug, Gilbert said. He is advising NRF members to look at these banks closely, particularly if they handle payroll chores. "I'm not saying a small state-chartered bank will fail" or that utilities will go down, he said. But where there is a gap in testing or auditing, "you have to make an assumption you might have an area of risk," he added. [end snip] -- Harlan ___ Subject: - Testing Gap Worries Date: 17 May 1998 12:07:53 EDT From: "Harlan Smith" <hwsmith.nowhere@cris.com> Organization: Paperless Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000