The bug that costs billions

By ROBERT TRIGAUX

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 2, 1999

Y2K may lead to why not sue Coaxing computers to comply with 2000 For economy, Y2K bug is contagious As Y2K work wanes, companies search for new niches Buy a bug Preparedness progress report Their Y2K motto: Be prepared Calm, not calamity, in local forecast for Y2K Firms say they're prepared for Y2K

With 243 days left until Jan. 1, nobody knows for sure what's going to happen to the world's computer systems as we approach the new millennium.

But judging from all the Times' Y2K stories featured in today's national, city & state, business and Floridian sections, the year 2000 bug phenomenon already has grabbed every computer-dependent business, government and individual in some way -- most often in the wallet.

After all, the Y2K problem (our computers can't understand when 1999 becomes 2000) may just be Earth's first scheduled disaster, one of history's greatest and most expensive technology blunders.

Global businesses and mom and pop stores are spending gobs of money to fix their Y2K problems. An even bigger cost has been people's time consumed on fixing a technical glitch that never should have been. That's time lost that could have been spent on new ideas to make life more productive and interesting.

Here we are approaching a new millennium awash in Y2K anxiety, instead of celebration for just being around at a rare moment in history.

Fixing the Y2K computer errors is expected to run close to $600-billion globally, a sum close to the annual gross domestic product of Canada. U.S. companies will pay their substantial share. Among the Y2K whoppers:

n General Electric puts its expense at $575-million, or about 25 percent of its quarterly earnings.

n Ford Motor Co. will spend $375-million on Y2K repairs.

n Walt Disney Co. puts its bill at $261-million. That's as much as Disney has made in global sales from Bambi since the movie was released in 1942.

n Time Warner, the cable TV provider for most of Tampa Bay, says its Y2K bill will run between $125-million and $175-million. Don't look for your cable bills to shrink any time soon.

Combined, those four companies tally almost $1.4-billion spent trying to fix computer programs. A few more businesses. A few more billions. Soon we're talking big bucks.

Someone eventually will pay for all these bills. Like consumers.

Florida businesses of all shapes and sizes are ponying up for Y2K, too. The state's biggest utility, the parent of Florida Power & Light in south Florida, will spend $50-million on Y2K fixes. Tampa's Intermedia Communications says its price tag tops $10-million.

Saddlebrook, a Mobil Four Star resort in south Pasco County, bought a new computer system to help deal with Y2K headaches. Price: $395,000. Now the resort hopes to help pay that bill by promoting "Millennium Extravaganza" deals to ring in 2000. A five-day, four-night package costs $1,999, wine included.

Just east of Tampa, Valrico Bancorp spent $165,000 to upgrade its software. But that's not all. The bank, wary of lawsuits, is setting aside $8,000 a month until 2000 against "potential loan losses as a direct result of Y2K problems and also litigation concerns arising for Y2K."

Valrico Bancorp is smart. Big tech companies like IBM, AT&T; and Lucent Technologies and big retailers like Circuit City Stores and CompUSA already have been sued for not forewarning customers that equipment they sold in recent years cannot handle year 2000 dates. In Warren, Mich., grocery store Produce Palace International sued the provider of its checkout scanning system, complaining it failed to read credit cards expiring in 2000. The store settled its suit for $250,000.

All the Y2K fuss will produce some big winners. Computer programers remain the most in-demand workers in the world as companies desperately pay big sums to get their software glitches fixed before the end of this year. Lawyers are geared up, either to sue or defend businesses and governments, ready to blame Y2K for every imaginable computer-related problem that occurs in 1999 or 2000.

T-shirtmakers, hawking sayings such as "Y2K Compliant T-Shirt" or "I Survived Y2K And Only Got This Lousy T-Shirt," are beginning to flood outlets and Web sites. Freeze-dried foodmakers are enjoying a rush from folks scared about a meltdown in our infrastructure.

And yes, even the media may benefit by glomming on to Y2K as the most universal of stories since Monica.

The Times first mentioned the condensed term "Y2K" in a January 1997 story. Since then, we have mentioned Y2K 174 times. But Y2K coverage started much earlier. Back then, we just didn't have the buzzwords.

In March 1993, this newspaper ran a story about 104-year-old Mary Bandar of Winona, Minn. Her Catholic parish sent her a surprise invitation -- to come to preschool. Bandar, born in '88 (1888) had been culled out of a data base search for all Winona parishioners born in '88 (1988). The parish data base used only the last two digits of the year and could not tell the difference between 4 and 104 years old.

In 1995, Unum Life Insurance Co. in Portland, Maine, deleted 700 broker records from a licensing data base after a computer mistook "00" for 1900.

Don't wait for most Y2K failures to occur precisely at the new year. Think of them as a series of Y2K nuisances in the shape of a bell curve. They will build throughout 1999, peak on Jan. 1, then subside over the next one to three years.

Lately, companies are busy assuring nervous investors that their Y2K problems are being fixed and will be under control by 2000. "It's the other companies we do business with that we're worried about," companies typically say.

Wait a minute. If every company says they're doing okay, who exactly are these "other companies?"

The good news is that, Y2K or not, this will be a New Year's Eve to remember. The bad news? Many will celebrate alone: New Year's Eve is going to be dry for thousands of workers pulling Y2K duty.