This surprises me not one bit. We all want to believe the claims that everything is under control and companies are being forthright about their compliancy status. Unfortunately they are lying their butts off. This is due to negative sactions placed on the truth when it is bad--and regards to y2k, the reality is bad.
Occasionally, rarely, a stray company comes forward and admits losses due to y2k, or that it will not get its mission-critical systems repaired on time. What happens is predictable: its stock drops immediately. This is why no bank will admit it is behind schedule in y2k remediation efforts: fear of negative reactions such as bank runs.
This is also true among government agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration who, after being the target of bad press publicity throughout 1998, is compelled to constanly lie about its progress.
Entites doing this are rarely punished, so the deception continues. Story from the Orlando Sentinel
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."
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