A third of the schools are still working to get those systems done. |
And then, of course, the world will open for business on Monday, and that's when we'll test software systems and information processing systems. |
As you can imagine, when you have a problem like that you don't talk about it until you get it fixed. We don't want to give our enemies anymore information than they need. |
I don't think there is any way to deal with determining the nature of the threat, protecting against it and having appropriate mechanisms in place without an effective renewal of those partnerships or networks across the economy. |
I think by the time we get to Tuesday or Wednesday, we'll fold up our tents until we see how the world does on Leap Day on February 29. |
I think that means that the chances of some unknown or unmanageable catastrophe happening around the world are minimized significantly. |
If anything important happens, obviously we'll talk with the president as well. But at this point, we've agreed that my personal reports will be to the vice president over that weekend. |
If they didn't fix the systems, they would not be functioning. Somebody said we did it too well, we made it look too easy. Maybe that's right. Maybe we should have had a control group over here failing. |
Information and the exchange of information is a critical part of being able to remediate Y2K problems worldwide. |
It doesn't mean the system is going to shut down, but in a lot of cases it means people are going to have to go to manual processes, which may slow, to some extent, emergency response. |
It is far too early to declare victory. We have a lot of systems and a lot of countries to go through yet before we'll see what the actual impact has been of the transition. |
Let me put to rest the rumor that missiles are going to be flying everywhere by accident. |
One of the great goals of this meeting was to have people know each other and be able to communicate directly. We don't have time for the normal diplomatic procedures. |
Some communities and some companies still are deciding that they're going to wait and see (what happens when January 1, 2000 arrives) and we think that's a high risk roll of the dice. |
Some of the procrastinators haven't been heard from. I think it will be another few days before we can see definitively. |