Some of my favorite (though completely out of context) quotes from yesterday's ITAA Outlook. (Funny how people who've been following y2k for a while won't need that context, isn't it? For those who'd like to read the related background, just click here.)

For the past 10 months or so, I've tried to stay out the "awareness game." But in light of all the recent "safe as milk" (and improving) pronouncments from several government spokespeople, I just couldn't resist the following. I found it making me laugh in that y2k "gallows humour" way. The ITAA has a real knack for packaging the absurd sometimes. Here's hoping the Ontario/Canadian government really isn't behind (or even with?) the US in its y2k projects...

The Post Office...

...100,000 pieces of hardware and software, almost 600 vendors and suppliers, 38,000 nationwide facilities, and 152 "severe and critical" information systems to move 650 million pieces of mail a day to 130 million households and businesses.

...while the organization expects to spend $607 million to fix its systems, to date the Postal Service has made Y2K outlays of only $200 million.

...8000 critical suppliers, as of last month it knew the Y2K status of just 349. At Postal Service headquarters, 661 critical suppliers were polled for their Y2K status. Corcoran said nearly half failed to respond and, of the 349 that replied, "The Postal Service determined that 254 are at high risk of not being Y2K ready."

...just five postage meter manufacturers generate some $21 billion in Postal Service Revenue. "As of January 1999, the Postal Service had not completed its inventory of internal and external data exchanges," she said. Of the 5700 data exchanges in place, 4300 have been assessed and about 2000 identified as critical, she said. "As of now, 123 of the 2000 have been reported as Y2K ready."

...120,000 personal computers and about 14,000 servers and has categorized 2000 unique types of hardware and software. While Y2K solutions have been developed for 1600 of the 2000, Corcoran said that "Deploying the solutions will be a challenge because the Postal Service does not know which specific personal computers and servers are not Y2K compliant."

The HCFA...

...However, GAO views its progress on external mission-critical systems as overstated. As an example, Willemssen reported that none of the 54 systems that HCFA has reported as compliant were in fact Year 2000 ready. All have qualifications, which, according to HCFA, are "minor problems." GAO is not so sure.

"A specific example of a system reported as compliant with qualifications is the Florida standard system, used by 29 contractors. This system had one qualification that consisted of 22 test failures," Willemssen reported.

IRS...

...IRS missed its target date for upgrading systems software and hardware for mainframes, minis and personal computers. Delays on the mincomputer/file server upgrade will push testing to October 1999. On the personal computer front, White said the IRS plans to reduce its number of commercial software and hardware products from 4000 to 60.

...On contingency planning, White said the agency has slipped its schedule for 36 different plans, originally due for completion last December. Instead, the agency has staggered its approach to plan completion with several due by the end of March and the balance by the end of May.

-- Bill (2w@bigfoot.com), February 27, 1999