I've always tried to keep an optimistic view that results of Y2K problems might be reduced because everyone is working so hard on it. But I spent a large part of Friday and all day today checking on Y2K readiness of equipment for one of our clients. Most of the manufacturers are medium size. Out of 12 called, only 2 had any idea if their products were compliant. The rest actually admitted that they didn't really know. Most said it was something they were planning on looking into. Oh, by the way, one of the two that knew they were compliant was basing their findings on one faxed sheet from their supplier of logic controllers. They hadn't bothered to actually test anything. Guess that would be wasting valuable resources.

Last week, the track record went like this. Checked out two software companies that supply semi-custom databases for clients. Both had recently sold a package to local companies. Both had stated to the clients that their packages were compliant. When I let them know I was going to test their apps, they both admitted their software wasn't ready yet. On the bright side, one promised the updates by March or April of 1999. The other assured our client his software would be compliant by (really, he did say this) Dec. 31, 1999. That was a great comfort to the folks that had just written him a check for close to $11,000.

If our findings are anywhere near typical, I'm afraid there is a lot of hype going on out there. I see it this way. The vendors know if they admit now that they're not complaint, they're toast. If they lie, and happen to finish their project updates, they're okay. If they lie, and don't finish, they're toast. It's not too hard to figure out which way brings in more sales for the next 14 months.

Is anybody else seeing this type of thing, or am I just catching the bottom of the barrel?

-- Greg Sugg (gregsugg@bbnp.com), November 09, 1998

Answers

This just turned up on Gary North's "New Listings." The Effect of Change Control on Long-term Large-scale Y2K Software Projects

The author seems to know what he's talking about.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), November 10, 1998.

Greg, yes we've been waiting for the y2k compliant version of a package (quite essential to the Co.) for about a year since first promised. It is full of dates and will go belly up in 04/99. Apparently it will be ready in Feb Mar 99 cutting it a bit fine. Still trying to persuade the management here to find an alternative, have been for months. But it is a small supplier, ultimately they may go under, the 30 odd staff could probably get other jobs quite easily but leaving clients in the lurch with thousands of users.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), November 10, 1998.