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The 1999 deadline for the introduction of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the required software modifications cannot be met. So says Karl Feilder, a specialist in PC's and y2k.
Almost 90% of England's firms have not made the required modifications. Germany is far behind on its re-coding project.
The EMU project is absorbing resorces that could be devoted to the y2k repair. The banks and the new central government of Europe insist that nothing must be allowed to delay the EMU.
They want the benefits of the gold standard without gold. They also want 2000-compliant computers without re-coding. They won't get either.
This is from TECH WEB NEWS (Feb. 16).
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The new European Monetary Union currency, called EMU or the Euro, will be rolled out over three years beginning Jan. 1, 1999 for non-cash transactions, and will include coins and bank notes by 2002. EMU is expected to become the only valid currency in participating countries during 2002.
On average, 11 percent of small to medium-sized businesses in the European Union have acted on the IT implications of the new European currency, said the report by the U.K. branch of accounting firm Grant Thornton. The introduction of the European-wide currency, which is expected to replace existing currencies in participating countries by the year 2003, will require reprogramming of most companies' financial computer systems. . . .
The effects of new currency will be greater than the combined effects of decimalization, value-added tax and the millennium, said Stephen Dexter, spokesman at Grant Thornton. "Small to medium-sized companies are only now beginning to wake up to the implications," Dexter said. "It is no good waiting to see what happens because it will be too late to act," he said. . . .
"There is absolutely categorically no way that EMU can happen coincindentaly with the year 2000," said Karl Feilder, chief executive officer at year 2000 consultancy Greenwich Mean Time, in London.
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