World has massively overspent on millennium bug 'hype tax', claim researchers
Western European companies overspent on preparations for dealing with the millennium bug by up to $36m, according to IT researchers IDC.
Labelling the bill a ‘hype tax‘, IDC said the world massively overspent on fixing and preparing for the Y2K Bug. ‘This view is counter to the one that ever penny was well spent,’ it added.
Based on interviews with 10,000 companies across 17 countries last month, the figures include salaries for extra staff on hand over New Year’s Weekend, the cost in labour and overhead for contingency planning and overspending on Y2K remedies.
According to IDC’s Project Magellan, the US led the way in overspending on preparations with a total of up to $41bn. Asia-Pacific overspent by up to $5bn while the rest world overspent by up to $2bn. Across the world the overspending bill was between $66bn and $76bn. The figures includes salary costs.
‘By looking at the impact of Y2K in countries like Russia, Bulgaria, and Vietnam,’ notes John Gantz, Project Magellan Team Leader, ‘we are able to get a reasonably good fix on what would have happened if we hadn’t prepared as much in countries like the US, UK, and Sweden. It looks like we spent too much.’
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