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Y2K handholding seen as critical
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July 17, 1998 Web posted at: 12:20 PM EDT by Paul McNamara |
From...
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(IDG) -- Wall Street and President Clinton used separate forums to deliver the same message this week: The public requires reassurance that the year 2000 problem will not cripple stock markets or corporations.
Toward that end, Clinton called for legislation to shield companies from lawsuits that might arise from the sharing of year 2000 compliance data that later proves inaccurate. Meanwhile, on Wall Street, a consortium of securities firms and exchanges conducted the first in a series of tests designed to demonstrate the stock market's year 2000 readiness.
Year 2000 experts said such high-profile measures will become increasingly important as the millennium nears and fears heighten.
"Public testing like this is a real confidence builder," said Tom Oleson, an analyst with International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. "Wall Street is particularly vulnerable [to fallout from year 2000 failures], more so than almost any other industry."
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Twenty-nine securities firms and 12 exchanges conducted mock trades based on the date Jan. 3, 2000, the new millennium's first business day. Although a full report on the results will not be issued until Aug. 10, test organizers said the transactions encountered no apparent year 2000 glitches.
"This industry relies on the confidence of investors," said Margaret Draper, spokesperson for the Securities Industry Association, which sponsored this week's test. "The goal is that John Q. Public will not notice anything happening on Jan. 3, 2000."
The threat of lawsuits has made reaching that goal more difficult for companies and organizations of all stripes, Oleson said. That's why he felt the president's call for legislation was particularly important. "Industry needs protection against what I think is nothing more than ambulance chasing," he said.
Oleson recounted having recently asked the CEO of a major networking vendor whether his company's lawyers were cautioning against the free exchange of compliance information.
"Yes, they are," the CEO responded, "because we are afraid that something that we might say will be shown not to be completely, totally accurate, and then the ambulance chasers will come after us."
Clinton attempted to address that concern in his speech before the National Academy of Sciences.
"Today, too many businesses are understandably reluctant to share information, fearing legal complication," Clinton said. "We have to take prudent steps to clear away any legal barriers to effective action."
The president called on Congress to protect companies from being sued over their efforts to publicize and share year 2000 test data, presuming those efforts are made in good faith.
"The proposed Good Samaritan law will give companies the confidence they need to ensure that they keep their customers informed," Clinton said. "If ordinary citizens believe they're being told the full story, they'll be far less likely to act in ways that could themselves hurt our economy."
There could conceivably be a downside to these handholding efforts, suggested one year 2000 expert.
"They have a positive side in terms of moving us away from hysteria," said Andy Bachman, a year 2000 specialist at Boston-based Aberdeen Group, Inc. "On the other hand, this public wants to be told a happy story, so if the message decreases public awareness by [making people] pacified early on, that is potentially a bad thing."