After hearing the Gartner Report and comparing it to the Navy report I've noticed the following.... 1. The Gartner Report indicates that there will be a few problems but nothing even close happening to the US glitch wise compared to the tone the Navys report is giving. Why would those from the Gartner Group risk their careers by appearing before the Senate only to lie? Strikes me that either the Gartner Group or the Navy is speaking with a forked-tongue. 2. During the Senate hearings, the Gartner Group predicted that a major ramping up of y2k related glitches would start happening starting in July, yet, few glitches of any real size have yet to happen. Am I missing something here? Seems to me that these two reports are in contradiction to one another. One portrays y2k as being more of a foriegn problem while the other (the Navy report) indicates that things will be far worse for the US that the Gartner Group indicates.

-- Richard L. (trubeliever@webtv.net), August 20, 1999

Answers

The gartner Group can only report what they have been told.

Keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), August 20, 1999.

Ditto for the Navy.

;-D

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), August 20, 1999.

So, depending on the particular agency's ability to collect and interpret the data - dictates the report's reliabilty and value. Does anyone have knowledge of the Military's procedure in determining the readiness of the different sectors: telecomm, power, etc? Are they dependent on officers at the local bases scoping out the situation or relying on Intelligence reports from CIA or other intel organizations? Regards,

-- paul dirac (pdirac@hotmail.com), August 20, 1999.

Gartner assumption: everything will work, unless proven otherwise.

Navy assumption: nothing will work, unless proven otherwise.

(Let's not even get into the fact that how "proof" has been defined is all over the map.) Those making prudent contingency plans already know which assumptions they should heed.

-- M.C. Hicks (mhicks@greenwich.com), August 20, 1999.

Oh, Diane, do I have the hots for you! Mud wrestling is my game, what's yours?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), August 20, 1999.

If we can never trust what the government is telling us regarding Y2K, then how can we assume that the Navy document is accurate, or that the navy boneheads even got it right? (The Norco California Naval weapons center was missing) And it seems to me that all of the high profile Y2K gurus, those who came into prominence several years ago and were considered doom-and-gloomers then, have all turned 180 degrees in their opinions or have decided to retire until next year.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Y2KOK.ORG), August 20, 1999.

Uncle Bob,

The Navy *wasn't* telling you about their conclusions, in fact they didn't want you to know about it. Sure, it was on a web site, but who had the URL? No, this wasn't really "public" information, as Koskinen has suggested, and as soon as the public started to get interested, off it went.

And the Gartner Group went the way of de Jager. The switch, last year, was sudden and surprising. They went from "looming disaster", to, concerned about the situation but it's "manageable." Why would they do that? Do they have a lot of government consulting contracts? Is there a conflict of interest involved? Something is fishy there.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), August 20, 1999.

Gordon...

Good points. Still, its curious that when a government report embraces what we suspect will happen we consider it the gospel. When it paints a "don't worry, be happy" portrait, we discount it as government spin.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Y2KOK.ORG), August 20, 1999.

Gartner vs. Navy is no different than any polly vs. doomer discussion: each "side" thinks they have reliable information to support their case. NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN - That includes the Navy, Gartner or whoever else you want to listen to. THERE ARE NO Y2K EXPERTS - Y2K IS UNPRECEDENTED. Nothing anyone can say will mean anything - that is why we are preparing. HOPE FOR THE BEST, PREPARE FOR THE WORST. We once thought (mid-1998) that information would become clearer as we approached rollover. In reality, information will be more ambiguous and confusing as more players enter the arena. If every single person on the Earth were doomer or polly, it would have absolutely NO correlation to the outcome. Y2K will only evolve in ONE way - the FUTURE will show it. Until then everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is just GUESSWORK - I don't care who you are.

Bottom Line

NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN

THERE ARE NO Y2K EXPERTS

HOPE FOR THE BEST, PREPARE FOR THE WORST

-- Jim (x@x.x), August 20, 1999.

I pointed this out in response to the HAMASAKI thread from yesterday, but the following is cut and pasted from a news report referenced there:

Despite fears about international preparedness, analysts at Stamford-based Gartner Group say they are guardedly optimistic about the international progress on Y2K.

But Dale Vecchio, a Gartner Group research director, cautions that most of the assessments of Y2K progress are self-reported by corporations and governments.

"We have seen in the first half of 1999 some tremendous reported progress in almost all industries and all geographies . . . and frankly, we're a bit skeptical about it," Vecchio said.

The GG knows what the game is. They know that they're being lied to now that people are paying closer attention to the issue.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), August 20, 1999.

The Gartner Group was fairly pesimistic when their reports were ONLY for subscription and industry consumption. They turned around when they were commissioned to do a PUBLIC report, and have stayed that way because they are now part of the PUBLIC debate (and I use THAT term under advisement). Track the history.

chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), August 20, 1999.

Jim...

So, how do you really feel about it?

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Y2KOK.ORG), August 20, 1999.

Chuck,

Yes, that's right, I had forgotten about that. Thanks for the reminder! I remember now thinking at that time that GG had been "reached" by the-powers-that-be, who pay them the big bucks. It was the suddenness of their turnaround that had taken me by surprise. There was no critical revelations of data to warrant such a different reading by them, at that time.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), August 20, 1999.