WASHINGTON-“All problems that occur on Jan. 1 will be assumed to be Y2K problems,” said John Koskinen, chair of the President’s Council on Y2K Conversion. Koskinen spoke Thursday to the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council.
This assumption, that all problems will be related to the millennium bug-the term used for the problem some computers might experience because their date fields will read the two-digit date field “00” as “1900” rather than “2000”-is the reason the White House is planning to keep everyone informed, Koskinen said.
With the crisis center in place, the federal government will be able to “provide assistance if there is an emergency,” he said. “The one advantage we have is that we know when it will happen.”
The White House crisis center will evaluate problems as they occur so that if they are not Y2K-related, this information can be made public to reduce panic.
Koskinen said preparing for the millennium bug is a “unique management challenge. It [impacts] everybody all at once, all over the world.”
The work of correcting software problems should be just about completed, but there are still small- and medium-sized companies that need to combat the problem. That is why the President’s Y2K Council will be holding an “it’s not too late day” in September to stress one last time that software needs to be checked and corrected. “At that point, people are going to have to take responsibility … some of these small- and medium-sized companies are going to go out of business … there is only so much we can do,” Koskinen said.
In another event on Thursday, Koskinen released the council’s third summary of Y2K progress assessments for key economic sectors, including telecommunications.
“Based on the most recent data, I believe Americans can be confident that a number of vital industries, including … telecommunications … are now well-positioned to make a successful transition to the new millennium,” Koskinen said.
