When customers put their cards in a bank’s ATM machine and no money comes out tempers flare and rumors start flying. Consequently, after customers of National Westminster Bank Plc in the UK hit problems last week, rumors suggested that this showpiece NT-based operation had a major fault and Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates had personally taken charge of the operation to straighten out the problem. However, according to Natwest, the basic problem was nothing to do with ATMs – and NT was not to blame. It said an upgrade of its own software slowed down its networks, and in a bid to speed things up and diagnose the problem, 100 ATMs were shut down. The problem turned out to be a handle leak – once a task was completed resources were not released for the next job. And so a story that Gates was responsible proved to be untrue – though the bank probably needs to send one of its programmers for a spot of training before the next upgrade.
