BAe says year 2000 furore is 'alarmist propaganda'

John Weston, group managing director of British Aerospace (BAe), has dismissed the year 2000 furore as 'alarmist propaganda', writes Robert Juman Blincoe.

In an exclusive interview with Computing, Weston revealed that customers had been inquiring what implications the year 2000 problem would have on BAe's major product lines. He said no answer would be available until the company completes its audit in two months time.

'We are confident we have the thing under control,' he said. 'A combat plane has 30 to 40 different processors embedded in it, but what they do is not often date related.'

Weston believes some responsibility for the problem should be shouldered by BAe as well as its IT vendors.

'Some liability lies with us, but we won't get into this debate until we've decided what the issues are,' he said.

BAe's Nimrod planes contain systems to control 850 pieces of mission and avionic equipment. These process 150Mb of data per second, and are programmed with two million lines of code.

Weston also believes there is no danger that less professional arms manufacturers will endanger the world.

'I imagine there will be pieces of kit that are inoperable rather than something going off that wasn't supposed to,' he said.