Y2K one big,
bad computer bug
Those in the know are scrambling
By Richard Borreca
to avert the year 2000 computer glitch,
spending millions and backing away
from liability, just in case
Star-BulletinThe world is soon to be divided into two groups: those who knew about and prepared for the year 2000 computer glitch and those who didn't.
Woe to those in the latter group.
The problem, given the computer jargon shorthand name of the "Y2K bug," is likely to touch nearly anyone on the planet who uses electricity.
The problem is that broad, the Central Intelligence Agency warns, because results could be catastrophic if computers or computer chips fail in power plants or hospitals.
"We're concerned about the potential disruption of power grids, telecommunications and banking services" among other possible fallouts, especially in countries already torn by political tensions, Sherry Burns, head of the CIA office studying the problem, said in Washington last month.
Here in Hawaii the problem is serious enough for Bank of Hawaii to spend $30 million to resolve the computer glitch by reprogramming computers, buying new hardware and updating systems.
One of the biggest computer users in Hawaii is the state government. Already, $15 million has been budgeted to reprogram or replace computers.
"As far as we can see, everything is on track. The target date is September 1999 for everything to be online," said Tom Yamashiro, state Information and Communications Services Division head.
If the state doesn't finish on time, according to Yamashiro's office, it would be:
Unable to collect or process taxes.
Last week, Hawaii joined 12 other states that have capped their liability on Y2K liability suits.
On a federal level, the problem is so serious that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is requiring public companies to warn shareholders if the cost of a Y2K fix will significantly hurt their earnings.
And the Dutch financial group ING Barings warned that problems caused by the inability of many computers to cope with 21st-century dates were likely to reduce worldwide exports and growth by 2 percent in 2000.
For the state's list of 472 computer systems, almost half have been reported as compliant, according to a December report by Yamashiro to the state Legislature.
To bring the entire state system up to Y2K compliance, the state calculates it will have to dedicate 98,744 hours of work.
Despite all that, experts such as the University of Hawaii's Tung Bui, who is the Matson Navigation Co. distinguished professor of global business, fears the state will not be ready.
"It is the consensus that the state and the counties are quite far behind," he said.
The problem for Hawaii
The state and county problems are twofold, Bui explained.First, over the past 30 years, government agencies have gathered a tremendous collection of different computing systems. There are IBM mainframes, Wang host systems, local area networks, server systems, work stations, minicomputers and PCs.
Even if the computers are reading the dates correctly, they may be dealing with data that encodes the year as only two digits.
The other problem is with the computer chip lurking in everything from elevators to fancy rice cookers, Bui said.
Many of those chips -- and there are billions of them out there -- are used by machines to keep track of dates, run self-diagnostic checks and instruct the machines to turn off and on.
A simple example is the computer chip inside most modern elevators. Bui says the chip is programmed to record when regular maintenance is performed. If the maintenance isn't performed regularly, the elevator goes to the first floor, opens its doors and shuts off. It won't move until it has been reprogramed.
If the chip isn't Y2K compliant when 2000 comes, the chip will think it is the year 1900 and shut down.
But, Bui warned, the problem extends not just to the actual computer chip but to the data the computer uses.
In other words, if your business keeps dates with the year expressed as two digits, when 2000 comes you won't know if your data is about 1900 or 2000.
"We did surveys in the hotel industry, and the levels of awareness is varied," Bui said.
"It is much more than just PCs and reservations. They must consider food ordering and transactions coming in from everywhere.
"If you aren't careful by the turn of the century, you might not have any customers," he said.
The Y2K glitch even caught Bui last month when he tried to make a credit call at Honolulu Airport. With a credit card expiring in the year 2000, Bui found that the pay phone refused to accept his charged call.
"The computer thought my card expired in the year 1900," he said.
Bug business equals
By Richard Borreca
big business for programmers
and attorneys
Star-BulletinIf the clock's tick from 1999 to 2000 echoes trouble for most companies, it is the sound of real money being made by some.
Computer programmers, for instance, who can work with the 30-year-old COBOL -- Common Business-Oriented Language, used to program mainframe computers -- are in high demand.
"Three years ago, these guys were getting $40,000 to $50,000 a year. Now they can get up to $80 an hour," says Brad Lofton, vice president of Staffing Partners. "Everyone is looking for COBOL programmers -- banks, medical centers, any business with a large amount of data," he said. "The bigger problem is that there aren't enough people. The rates are going up monthly."
Businesses, especially small businesses, are going to be shocked when they discover their company's computer flaws and the problems they will have correcting them, Lofton said.
The problem will get worse every month until the millennium, he said.
"Call me six months from now; the rates will be 50 percent higher," he said.
"A small business will go into the marketplace, and they will find there aren't going to be people available, not at any price."
The alternative to not fixing those Y2K bugs now, however, is even more frightening: lawyers.
The University of Hawaii's business school expert on the computer problem said attorneys across the country are figuring that lawsuits regarding Y2K negligence will become 10 percent of their business in the new millennium. "It will be a major source of their income," professor Tung Bui said.
Gary Grimmer, a partner with Carlsmith Ball Wichman Case and Ichiki and head of his law firm's Y2K committee, predicts many new cases.
"Many devices have embedded computer chips, like elevators and in hospitals. If they can't handle data, you could be talking about personal injury and death, product liability lawsuits.
"This is a whole new set of standards," he said.
For example, if all of a building's elevators jam because of a Y2K glitch, and even if no one is hurt, it is a violation of Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules to force people to climb more than three stories to go to work. So there are legal implications, according to Grimmer's colleague, Stephen Olsen.
Attorneys thinking about the liability in Y2K cases explain that businesses have to do what is "reasonable and prudent" to prevent damage.
Because there has been so much publicity about the potential harm, proving that someone was negligent will be all the easier.
