According to IDC's Project Magellan, which has monitored the impact of Y2K as it passed from time zone to time zone, Y2K-related computer downtime will take $21 billion out of the global economy in the year 2000. This estimate slightly revises IDC's previous forecast of $23 billion.
John Gantz, IDC Senior Vice President, Chief Research Officer and team leader for Project Magellan pointed out that the real impact of Y2K will come in the weeks and months to come as companies deal with recalcitrant office systems, billing snafus, and record keeping applications in which bugs appear. "In a way, the major applications were easiest to identify, and the easiest to fix," said Gantz. "It is the applications deep in the bowels of the average company that will need the remedial work. And these will create downtime, an hour and a minute at a time."
29 February could be next
Although the post-Y2K era is here, do not relax completely. 29 February could pose the next problem date. The extra day at the end of February is normal; they happen every four years. But this one is unusual and whether computers recognise it depends on how thoroughly their calendars were programmed.
Leap day 2000 is 'the exception to the exception,' according to Rick Weirich, the US Postal Service's Vice President for Information Technology. He said that some computers may not expect a leap day this year, and thus skip ahead to 1 March. Because the actual year is slightly longer than 365 days, an extra 'leap' day is added every fourth year. But that still does not make things come out quite even over time, so leap days are skipped in years ending in 00. However, the problem is that if the year ending in 00 can be divided evenly by 400 it still is a leap year. Thus, 1600 was a leap year and 2000 will be too, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not and neither will be 2100.
Bits and bytes - Y2K errors
Around the world most things seemed to operate as normal the first working day of the new century. However, every now and then bloopers did pop up. For example:
* The official Pokemon website of game-maker Nintendo displayed the date 2 January, 3900. On Monday, the 3rd, the site posted the date incorrectly - as 3 January, 3900 - when viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer. The date discrepancy was not displayed for Netscape browser users, however. The year 3900 glitch was apparently caused by a defect in the way Explorer renders JavaScript.
* In aviation, where year 2000 readiness is a prime concern, the Auckland International Airport's Y2K Update News flash page, assured visitors that all is well with Auckland's airport. "The airport is operating as normal," reads the site. "No Y2K problems have been experienced and all operations are continuing as usual." Unfortunately the site was dated 1 January 100.
* The American Blimp Corporation had a Monday morning date of 3 January, 192000 on its website.
* On the Netscape's Latin America website, the date read Sabado, 1 de enero, 19100, or Saturday, January 1, 19100. They really should have known better.
* On the Star Trek Voyager section of the Star Trek website, an upcoming program date advertised a show slated to begin on 1/1/1900.
* In China, a customer returning a video was fined the equivalent of US $7000 because the store's computer thought it was 100 years overdue.
* The Korea University sent out graduation certificates dated 13 January, 1900.
* A man in Germany logged onto his home banking computer account to find that he had the equivalent of $6 826 253,67 bonus in his account - from a transaction dated 30 December 1899.
* One site however did believe that honesty was the best policy and owned up: "Despite our best efforts at averting Y2K problems, it seems that our web server now believes that it is January of 1900. Please be advised that we are working diligently on the problem and hope to have it fixed soon."
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