An executive summit meeting will be held in Bermuda later this year to gauge how well Island businesses are preparing for the Year 2000.

MM&I Technology Group vice-president John Tartaglia said his firm would facilitate the event which would be sponsored by global telecommunications firm Cable & Wireless.

The Bermuda International Business Association and the Chamber of Commerce are due to throw their support behind the initiative, he added.

Everyone needed to know how well Bermuda was dealing with the problem of the Year 2000 bug, he warned.

"We believe this summit to be one of the most important meetings to be held thus far in Bermuda this year. This is why the President and CEO of each organisation will be invited to attend.

"The objective is to try and determine just how prepared Bermuda is, and how much progress has been made, in dealing with the Year 200 problem.'' An imaginary company called Bermuda Inc. will be formed. It will be represented as a three-storey building with each floor made up of a vital sector of the business community.

The building will be made up multiple blocks with each representing a critical task to be completed on the road to Year 2000 compliance.

The ground floor will be represented by essential services, the second floor will be for the finance sector and the top floor will be for international business.

"During the summit we will identify the progress that each sector has made in dealing with the Year 2000 problem; being very cognizant of the fact that any failing in one sector will have serious consequences, not only on the other dependent sectors, but also on the Bermuda economy and the lives of each and every one of us.

"We will add a building block to Bermuda Inc. for every critical task that each sector has completed. Uncompleted tasks will result in a building block being removed.

"At the end of the summit we will produce an image which will show the current state of preparedness of Bermuda Inc. as it relates to the Year 2000.

"If we are missing a lot of blocks in our building then it will tell us that we had better work hard, and as a team, in doing something about it, quickly.'' There is presently huge world wide concern over how computers will react on January 1, 2000.

Many systems were designed with two digit only date fields so all years were considered to be in the 20th Century and the 19 was dropped. The programmes are in use today and this could spell disaster when the year hits 2000.

Mr. Tartaglia said: "In principle, fixing the Year 2000 bug is as simple as telling your software to add 19 to existing dates and to accept only four-digit dates in the future. The Year 2000 bug, after all, is just a bug, and squashing bugs is something systems people do every day.'' He stressed that the problem was a business problem with complex strategic implications, not a computer problem even though it was technology related.

"To reduce the risk to your organisation, management must take action and they must show strong leadership.'' Most companies would be unable to do everything they needed to on time, he added.

"Management has to identify its mission critical systems and allocate available resources to fixing these first. Non-critical systems will have to wait.'' There was not only an emphasis on in-house preparation for the Year 2000, continued Mr. Tartaglia.

"Officers and directors need to know whether key business partners, service providers and suppliers are addressing their own Year 2000 issues.

"An organisation well on its way to Year 2000 compliance can suffer substantial financial and operational consequences if business partners become unable to deliver key services vital to the business.''