Now if I am not mistaken, Hong Kong is near Japan(not ready) which is near Korea(not ready) which is near China(not ready) which is near.... Does this have the making of a new domino theory?

http://www.currents.net/newstoday/99/05/31/news1.html

Small businesses in Hong Kong are not ready for the year 2000. According to research group International Data Corp., small businesses in the US - considered to be more advanced than their Asian counterparts - are far from ready for, and Hong Kong is expected to be no different.

The IDC study found out that the majority of small firms had yet to undertake a formal assessment of their Y2K compliance. IDC estimates that 3.3 million firms in the US have waited until the last minute to prepare for the millennium.

Microsoft Hong Kong Marketing Director Fan Look believes the majority of small businesses in Hong Kong not only have not begun testing their systems for Y2K compliance, they don't know where to begin. "It is more about they are not educated about the Y2K issue," Fan said, but added that it would be easier for SMEs to fix the problem rather than large enterprises. "The exposure is less, the environment is less complicated and complex," Fan said. "But they have to get started now."

Henrik Christensen, director of Abacus, a company that deals with fixing Y2K problems, said few SMEs in Hong Kong had bothered to do anything about preparing for Y2K. "I think many companies in Hong Kong hope it just will not hit them and they put their heads in the sand," Christensen said.

He added that, as a result of this attitude, Hong Kong was going to lose a lot of business from its overseas clients. "I have no doubt that it will cost Hong Kong a lot of business," he said.

One of the main reasons behind poor SME Y2K compliance was financial, he said. "I think many SME companies are working on a very tight budget - people tend to be overworked in a lot of companies and they don't have the manpower and finances to do it."

That aside, Christensen said, a lot of SMEs in Hong Kong had a "very relaxed attitude" towards Y2K compliance, and as a result would not make it through 2000 with their existing computer systems.

According to the IDC report, US small businesses spent an estimated US$10.6 billion by February on hardware and software upgrades that will help avoid Y2K problems. The company estimates that small firms will spend an additional $6.9 billion before the ball drops on New Year's Eve.

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), May 29, 1999

Answers

That's why us Brits dumped Hong Kong when we had the chance :)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 29, 1999.

now there's some tart grapes.....

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.comq), May 29, 1999.