Y2K - 55% Of Trouble Expected During Year 2000, 15% More In 2001

asia.yahoo.com 9-19-99

PARIS (AFP) - Though the crunch date of January 1, 2000 is still 100 days away, the "millennium bug" -- the computer glitch arising from the inability of two-digit date counters to distinguish 2000 from 1900, also known as "Y2K" -- has already begun to bite.

Thousands of minor dysfunctions have arisen as computers handling date-forward transactions stumble over the two zeroes, and the number is set to increase radically on October 1 as the year enters its last quarter, analysts warn.

According to GartnerGroup, a commercial research organisation that has been monitoring developments as governments and private companies race to locate and repair vulnerable systems, fewer than 10 percent of the total number of computer systems failures that can be expected will occur during the two weeks surrounding January 1, 2000.

Fifty-five percent will occur next year, spread over the year at a slightly declining rate. Fifteen percent will occur in 2001.

Gartner estimated that 25 percent of the failures will occur during the course of 1999.

The first failures, totalling around five percent of the likely total, began prior to the start of this year, it said in its final quarterly report published last month.

Another monitoring company, Cap Gemini, reported last December that more than half its respondents had already experienced Y2K-related computer errors.

Although the full extent of the damage caused by Y2K cannot be predicted and will not be known until its effects have been fully absorbed, the consensus view among experts is that the "millennium bug" will make itself felt as a gradual build-up of inconveniences, rather than a sudden breakdown.

One said there would be an accumulation of isolated, small-scale problems which, in his view, would fail to reach the critical mass needed to achieve a disaster scenario.

Another said the effects of Y2K would be like putting sand in a car engine: it would not explode, but simply begin to work less efficiently.

Yet another said there would be "a number of hiccups, but not enough to stop the world going round."

Thus for Gartner, the number of systems failures -- defined as the production of inaccurate date, the inability to execute a transaction or to continue functional operations -- rose considerably on July 1, as more companies entered fiscal 2000, and will continue rising until the end of the year. It will then begin slowly to decline.

Gartner in fact believes that the impact on business may well be less in 2000 than in 1999, since fewer customer-facing systems are likely to be affected. In addition, systems managers should have acquired more experience in coping with difficulties.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), September 20, 1999

Answers

That would be lovely...

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), September 20, 1999.

wow, and to think that Gartner actually gave out fairly good info at one time. amazing.....

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), September 20, 1999.

A graph of these estimates is a part of the GartnerGroup's Senate testimony in March. It's slide #2:

http://www.senate.gov/~y2k/hearings/990305/gartner.htm

Process controller failures will be concentrated in a rather narrow time frame. I would imagine that many of the problems so far have been in financial forecasting software.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), September 20, 1999.

I don't see just a 3-day period portrayed on the graph Linkmeister. The chart should show a real small sharp spike around Jan 1st, then about 1 or 2 millimeters over to the right, a sharp drop. I guess Koskinen's chart would look more like this.

-- Larry (cobol.programmer@usa.net), September 20, 1999.

Larry,

I guess I should have made my point clearer. The overall line on that graph shows failures over a wide period of time. There is a plus to software problems not all happening in a narrow time frame, and that is that it makes it easier for these problems to be fixed quicker. There wouldn't be as much competition at the same time for the resources needed to fix potential problems if they're spread out over a wider time period.

The separate line on that graph for process controller failures, though, shows that a large majority of those would be in December or January. Failures in process controllers are the ones most likely to be immediate "show-stoppers" and attract public attention. Process controller failures happening in a fairly narrow time frame would mean organizations needing to have the problem addressed will be competing at the same time for the resources to fix problems.

In my opinion, Y2K's effect can be divided into three categories of varying lengths: shorter-term problems for the utilities or infrastructure that were poorly remediated (days, weeks?), supply chain problems that would last longer than that (weeks, months?), and an overall economic impact that will be Y2K's longest lasting effect.

It also may be that as far as software problems go, many of the problems so far would have been in financial forecasting, while almost all of the software glitches involving the ordering of parts or goods could still be ahead of us.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), September 20, 1999.