The aftermath of an unexpected disaster – a storm, a plane crash, an auto accident – is often marked by tragedy. And tragedy, inevitably, prompts a range of quick-witted human responses, from the brave to the criminal. But who makes out when a disaster is perfectly predictable?
Ask Peter deJager, a Toronto-based former Cobol programmer and entrepreneur. Instead of swooping in ex post facto, deJager is cleaning up on a crisis that hasn’t yet occurred – but which has become the most over-hyped computer story of the year: the danger posed by the so-called millennium bug.
DeJager has been cited – often vaguely as an “expert” – in just about every news account of “millennium bug” dangers. Warnings about the bug are based on a programming glitch leftover from the mainframe days, when coders trying to save memory decided to identify years by the last two digits only. The most dire millennium bug warnings claim that come 2000, many computers will think it’s 1900. Unless preemptive action is taken to correct the dates, CPUs everywhere will go haywire.
The frequent press citations have helped deJager get attention for his Web site, which is where he says he makes most of his money these days.
The Year 2000 Information Center is not a subtle affair. It features a real-time “countdown clock” that ticks away the seconds until midnight on New Year’s Eve 1999 when, deJager suggests, the world’s financial markets will collapse, businesses and individuals will suddenly go bankrupt, and planes will crash. The Web site isn’t just a public service, either: The resourceful deJager charges dozens of consulting companies for advertisements on the site. More than 100 companies, including Comdisco, Ernst & Young, and deJager’s own consulting firm are on the list. Several – many with the word “millennium” in their name – were formed specifically to address the bug.
Under the heading “products to build awareness,” advertisers hawk videos, audio tapes, and Year 2000 watches and T-shirts.
Individuals and smaller companies seeking their piece of the millennium bug action can pay deJager US$300 a pop for a job listing. But so far, only a handful of companies looking for programmers of Cobol and other old programming languages have advertised there.
Otherwise, deJager doesn’t hesitate to warn of certain calamity.
“We will see a large number of bankruptcies. Power grids could shut down. If the power stops, I don’t want to be in North Dakota.”
“And what about welfare checks?”
What about them? “Well, if they can’t be delivered, do you want to be on the streets?”
Behind all his blustering doomsday warnings, deJager admits there won’t be sudden calamity on 1 January 2000. “It won’t happen all at once. In fact, a lot of it’s happening now.” Most of the problems that have already occurred are in networks run by industries long-reliant on mainframes, including banks and brokerages, which keep records of investments that will last beyond the deadline. But these problems, according to one analyst for the Gartner Group, were solved almost as soon as they happened.
Whether or not the bug will be fixed in time elsewhere depends on who you ask. What is certain is that deJager – and the MIS consultants he represents – will be making lots of money in the process.
