As the New Year approaches, uncertainty about the effects of the Y2K bug remain. The major catastrophes and collapses of infrastructure heard in the most dire Y2K predictions appear unlikely. However, smaller glitches, and ripple effects from problems in countries that have not been as diligent as this one could create headaches. A recent study released by the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion indicates that most governments and businesses have, as of October, made significant headway in fixing their Y2K problems. Some industries, such as banking and finance, appear to be close to 100 percent complete.
Most sectors still have work to do, but expect to meet what is the ultimate, nonnegotiable deadline.
Others, such as education and trade, appear to still be lagging and may not have even major systems fixed by Jan. 1. Matt Hodel, a vice president with Gartner, concedes that's a wide range. By now, the problem is a familiar one. Older computers were programmed with only two digits in the date field, with the expectation that the machines and their software would be replaced well before 2000. In some cases, only two digits were used to save on computer memory, which in earlier systems was a precious commodity.