ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook
October 15, 1999                      Volume 4, No. 35

Published by the Information Technology Association of
America, Arlington, VA

Tinabeth Burton, Editor tburton@itaa.org

Read in over 80 countries around the world

ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook is published every Friday to
help all organizations deal more effectively with the
Year 2000 software conversion.  To create a
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ITAA on the web at https://www.itaa.org/transact/2ko
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ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook is sponsored in part by CACI
International Inc., DMR Consulting Group Inc and
Y2Kplus.

In this Issue:

Fed Chairman Says US is Ready
Intelligence Community Predicts United States Will Be Y2K Safe Harbor
Virginia to Host a National Summit on Y2K Business Practices
Business to Business
ITAA Y2K Information Center
Sponsor Advertising

Fed Chairman Says US is Ready

Today Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told a
Washington, DC audience that year-2000 computer
problems in the US would most likely be minor.

Speaking to the National Italian American Foundation,
the Fed chief focused his comments on year-2000
readiness -- not the current state of the economy and
financial markets.

"The good news is that evidence is becoming more
persuasive that our electronic infrastructure will be
ready for the Century Date Change," Greenspan said.
"The public's understanding of the degree of our Y2K
readiness also has grown, and fears of widespre ad
disruptions around the CDC appear to be waning, though
we are not as yet home free."

"As we prepare for the rollover, it is most important
to keep in perspective just how far we have come in our
Y2K preparations," Greenspan said, optimistic about
Americans' overall ability to handle difficult
situations and the resiliency of the American people
and economy.

"Let us not lose sight of the fact that the
overwhelming majority of us are not only prepared but
have contingency plans to deal with breakdowns,"
Greenspan said.  "Because businesses are effectively
buying insurance against an uncertainty, the less uncer
tainty, the smaller the perceived insurance need,"
Greenspan said. "That's why it's crucial businesses
share information on how well they are prepared." The
Chairman remarked on the Fed's arrangements to have
extra currency available on the off chance that
consumers and businesses withdraw a significant amount
of funds from the U.S. banking system.  However, "I
trust that such withdrawals will be modest s ince, as I
have said before, the safest thing for consumers to do
with their money around year-end is to leave it where
it is."

Intelligence Community Predicts United States Will Be
Y2K Safe Harbor

The United States may reap temporary economic benefits
from the perception of a Y2K crisis, as investors from
other nations look to the security and compliance of US
markets as a place to put their money and avoid
technology problems in other parts of the world.

Lawrence Gershwin, National Intelligence Officer (NIO)
for Science and Technology, told the Senate Special
Committee on Y2K that Russia, Ukraine, other Eastern
European countries, mainland China, Egypt, Indonesia,
and India were "especially vulnerable due to their poor
Y2K preparations and, in some cases, the difficulty of
coping with breakdowns in critical services in the
middle of winter."

Gershwin, who is responsible for compiling the views of
all U.S. intelligence agencies on scientific and
technical matters, said Russia and Ukraine are
"particularly vulnerable" to Y2K failures.

In these matters, Gershwin represents the CIA, the
Defense Intelligence Agency, which coordinates military
intelligence; the National Security Agency, which is
responsible for the security of communications systems,
and the intelligence agencies of the di fferent
branches of the United States military as well as the
Department of State and Energy

In prepared testimony for the committee, he told them
potential malfunctions around the globe could either
cause or make much worse existing humanitarian crises.
As a result, "Some foreign governments and businesses
will look to the United States and i ts better prepared
infrastructure to overcome Y2K problems abroad,"

The assessment provided to the committee places a
strong emphasis on the behavior of the public,
responding to predicted Y2K-related failures.  These
responses can, expectedly, vary widely and could have
"significant economic and political implications."

Gershwin said "We expect to see 'safehavening' of
financial assets, routing traffic through U.S. computer
and telecommunications networks to avoid local
bottlenecks, using U.S. transportation facilities to
move international trade, and calls on the U.S. m
ilitary to intervene in humanitarian crises."  In
developed countries, possible Y2K "response risks"
include hoarding, heavy bank withdrawals, and purchases
of guns and other gear to ensure personal safety, he
said.

Such crises could arise from prolonged power and heat
outages, breakdowns in urban water supplies, food
shortages, degraded medical services, and
"environmental disasters resulting from failures in
safety controls," Gershwin said.

Their areas of greatest risk, he said, were strategic
warning, military command and control, nuclear power
plants, the gas industry, and the electric power grid.

"The chance of a nuclear incident in Russia, Ukraine,
or another state with Soviet-designed reactors during
the Y2K rollover is low," Gershwin testified.  But he
said it was higher than normal because of the
likelihood that the power grid could experience
failures, leading to a reliance on emergency power
supplies of questionable reliability.

"We are also concerned about possible Y2K-related
disruptions in countries planning major tourist
events--for example, Italy, Egypt, Brazil, and the
Caribbean--should local infrastructures experience
significant failures," Gershwin said.

"Y2K has a unique capacity to produce multiple,
simultaneous crises," Gershwin said, adding that its
impact is difficult to predict.

At the same hearing, the Honorable Bonnie Cohen,
Under-Secretary of State for Management, stressed the
international steps Secretary Albright and the
Department were taking to protect US financial and
business interests in other countries.

She told the committee the United States government has
"maintained a close relationship with the countries of
Africa, Latin America, the former Soviet Union and
Central Europe about Y2K problems."

"The Department has supported the two International Y2K
Coordinators meetings held at the UN.  In addition,
through the G-8, we have done assessments, contingency
planning and will soon coordinate our response
mechanisms," she said.

Cohen has been personally active on this issue, meeting
with officials from China, France, Italy, Lebanon,
Syria and Russia to review Y2K preparedness issue.

She also cited an example of the necessary
public-private partnership necessary to prepare the
globe for any Y2K problems and for remediation.

"[A] private sector group of multinational corporations
concerned with telecommunications in countries in which
they conduct business worked closely with us and the
Department of Commerce in identifying potential problem
areas.  Our embassies facilitated t he private industry
dialogue with host government officials.  I wouldn't
say that every problem was fixed or every issue
settled, but that process heightened awareness and
pushed remediation and contingency planning."

Echoing Gershwin's cautions, Under-Secretary Cohen
advised the committee that "Despite all these
preparations and efforts, should widespread Y2K induced
failures occur in other countries, we will have to
choose carefully where we might intervene if the ho st
country asks for help.  In making these decisions, the
U.S.  Government already has existing mechanisms for
establishing National Security and Foreign Policy
priorities.  These existing decision-making mechanisms,
such as the National Security Council, wi ll continue
to be used in the case of Y2K.  The resources and
skilled personnel available to traditional domestic and
international assistance agencies to work on Y2K are
tightly constrained.  Coordinating with other countries
that might also be in a positi on to help to do so will
also be very important."

Virginia to Host a National Summit on Y2K Business
Practices

What do you do when all the Y2K work is done?
According to Bette Dillehay, Director of the state of
Virginia's Century Date Change Initiative (CDCI) you
highlight your successes and the value that has been
added.

So, the state of Virginia is planning a National Summit
dedicated to the discussion of innovative business
practices.  Charting New Directions for a New
Millennium: Y2K Templates will address changes in
business practices relating to and resulting from ye ar
2000 conversion activities across the country.

"We have overcome what most people thought was a huge
problem and we should focus on that," said Dillehay,
speaking about Y2K remediation efforts. "There is a
real excitement here about what has been accomplished
and we need to highlight the business val ue that has
been added.  We want to carry with us the values of
that exercise."

Dillehay said the idea for the Summit came about 6
months ago, when the CDCI office began to recognize
that agencies in Virginia were beginning to change, in
subtle ways, the way they viewed technology. "We began
to see changes in business practices.  Ag encies began
to talk about the business issues as opposed to the
tech issues."

Realizing that these changes would carry into 2000,
Virginia's CDCI Office decided to create a forum to
highlight the values added, so that new templates were
not lost.  The summit was born, and calls for papers
and presentations were sent to every state , the
Federal government, and the private sector in mid
summer.  To date, 19 papers have been submitted for a
presentation – dialogue – feedback format that will
ultimately, according to Dillehay, result in a
published document.

Nancy Peters, Vice President of CACI, which has
conducted independent verification and validation for
Virginia's CDCI, says the Summit concept will have real
benefits.

"Best practices don't belong in a binder on a shelf.
Best practices are only best practices if they are
employed.  We had to use concepts such as good project
management just to get through the challenge and become
compliant.  This conference focuses on recognizing this
as a good thing," Peters said.

After the first of the year, the state's Century Date
Change Initiative office hopes to begin a pilot testing
program for the some of the innovations in business
practices the Summit will examine.  That is, after the
News Year's eve party at the Center fo r Innovative
Technology in Herndon.

The Summit will take place at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in
McLean, Virginia on December 5-7, and is open to
decision makers and technology professionals in
government and industry.  Interested attendees can
obtain registration information at www.cdci.state.v
a.us or by calling 888-2000-258.

Business to Business

Pegasus Telecom, Brazil, has signed a $120 million
contract with Alcatel.

GoldMine Software Corp., Hampshire, England, has
announced the integration of Greenwich Mean Time's
Check 2000 Client Server with HEAT 5.0, their help desk
and call center solution.

ITAA Y2K Information Center

Solution Providers Directory
http://www.itaa.org/script/2000vend.cfm

ITAA*2000 Certification Program
http://www.itaa.org/2000cert.htm

Outlook Archive
http://www.itaa.org/script/get2klet.cfm

Legislative and Litigation Table
http://www.itaa.org/year2000/legis.htm
Calendar
http://www.itaa.org/y2kcal.htm

Vendor/User Status Questionnaires
http://www.itaa.org/questmain1.htm

Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR)
http://www.itaa.org/year2000/adr.htm

Statement of Intention to Use ADR
http://www.itaa.org/year2000/soi.htm,

Y2K Mediators Seminar
http://www.technologymediation.com/Y2K_seminar.htm


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Information Technology Association of America, 1616 N.
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