spending. The Company's current estimate of total incremental external spending over the life of its Y2K plan to address those risks identified as High or Medium is approximately $10 million of which approximately $9 million had been spent as of September 25, 1999. As the Company's Y2K Plan continues, the actual future incremental spending may prove to be higher. Also, this estimate does not include the costs that could be incurred by the Company if one or more of its significant third party vendors fails to achieve Y2K compliance. The Company is not separately identifying and including in these estimates the Y2K costs incurred that are the result of utilization of the Company's existing internal resources.

CONTINGENCY PLANS

Under the guidance and management of the PMO, the Company is in the final stages of developing, implementing, and testing Y2K contingency plans for critical business operations. The Company's contingency plans, which are based in part on the assessment of the magnitude and probability of potential risks, primarily focus on proactive steps to prevent Y2K failures from occurring, or if they should occur, to detect them quickly, minimize their impact and expedite their remediation. The Y2K contingency plans will supplement existing disaster recovery and business continuity plans.

As part of its contingency plans, the Company has developed a global Incident Management Team (IMT) to identify, escalate, and mitigate the potential impact of various Y2K failures. The IMT is comprised of personnel from the PMO as well as key areas of the Company's operations. The IMT will begin to monitor the date rollover commencing with Sydney, Australia and will "follow the sun" through the time change in the Pacific Standard Time zone. The Company's contingency planning efforts were approximately 85% complete at the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 1999 and are expected to be substantially completed during the first quarter of fiscal 2000.

The Company believes it is reasonably possible there will be interruptions in air traffic control, airfreight transportation, customs clearance, telecommunications, and power utilities early in calendar year 2000 that could result in shipping delays of raw material and finished goods and other business interruptions. The Company has developed and implemented contingency plans to mitigate the effects of a short-term interruption in such services. However, if the interruption in these services last for an extended period of time, or if alternative Y2K compliant services are not readily available at reasonable cost, there could be material adverse effects on the Company's results of operations and financial position.

The Company also believes it is reasonably possible worldwide financial markets could exhibit unusual short-term volatility and liquidity disturbances at the end of calendar 1999 and at the beginning of calendar 2000. The Company has developed and implemented contingency plans to mitigate some of the potential short-term effects of such disturbances. However, if these disturbances in the financial markets last for an extended period of time, or if alternative mitigating actions are not