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INFOLIANT'S NOVEMBER COMPLIANCE TRACKER DELTA REPORT: THERE IS STILL A LOT OF Y2K WORK TO BE DONE OVER 1,200 UPDATED Y2K READINESS Disclosures Recorded With Less Than a Month To Prepare

Story Filed: Thursday, December 02, 1999 8:22 AM EST

PITTSBURGH, Dec 2, 1999 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Infoliant Corporation announced today that during the month of November, the Compliance Tracker(TM) Delta Report tracked 426 changes to the Y2K readiness status of off-the-shelf hardware and software products; 338 of these changes were "negative." Taking into account the additional 806 disclosures that Infoliant tracked regarding revised corrective action plans, patches and upgrades, the number of updated Y2K product readiness announcements totaled 1,232 in November.

In the last three months, Infoliant's Delta Report has tracked 1,070 Y2K status changes; 730 of these were negative changes (moving to a less than fully Y2K-Ready status). In addition, Infoliant has tracked 1, 706 changes to corrective action plans since September.

"We've been stressing the fact that Y2K remediation is an ongoing project, and the 2,700 changes we've detected in the last few months proves this point," said Kevin Weaver, executive vice president and co-founder of Infoliant. "With less than a month before the New Year, we are still tracking hundreds of "negative" status changes and even more disclosures on corrective action plans. This month, we tracked status changes to 262 different products that were previously considered compliant by their manufacturers. That's rather frustrating for those companies that are trying to wrap up remediation projects." Some interesting details of this month's Delta Report:

-- Manufacturers withdrew all Year 2000 support for 99 different products -- 101 products that were "Pending Evaluation" were tested by the manufacturer in November; 54 of these are not currently ready for the Year 2000 -- Only 9 products that were previously declared "Non-Compliant" have been "upgraded" to "Action Required" -- Changes to Y2K status were disclosed by 68 manufacturers, 8 of which disclosed changes on 30 or more products. These include Boca Research, Cincom Systems, Computer Associates, Corel, Dell Computers, Netscape Communications, Silicon Graphics, and Sun Microsystems

"Successful Y2K remediation is dependent upon accurate, timely information," says Weaver. "Our online knowledgebase and email notification service provide our customers with up-to-date compliance information for their IT assets, as well as corrective action plans and links to download manufacturer patches and upgrades. Our customers can continue their Y2K remediation as new information is received. We do all of the legwork for them, and they get the most up-to-date information for the products they use."

Infoliant is offering a free, three-day trial subscription to its Year 2000 Network Advisor(TM) knowledgebase. Trial users can search the online knowledgebase ( www.infoliant.com) for the Y2K compliance status of their IT assets. If they see the value in having the most timely information at their fingertips, they can subscribe to the knowledgebase and Infoliant's Compliance Tracker(TM) email notification service at discounted rates up to and beyond the Year 2000. Trial users receive price protection and the convenience of immediate activation, should they require the Year 2000 Network Advisor service at any time after the trial subscription ends.

Infoliant Corporation provides a number of Year 2000 compliance tracking and recording services. The Compliance Tracker(TM) Delta Report tracks statistics regarding the Y2K compliance status of products within Infoliant's Year 2000 Network Advisor(TM) knowledgebase, the leading resource for Y2K readiness information of off-the-shelf information technology products. Infoliant provides its customers with daily updates on the Year 2000 compliance status of more than 45,000 hardware and software products from more than 775 manufacturers. This information is also recorded and stored in Infoliant's Year 2000 Compliance Archive, a new service that provides a valuable timeline of the Y2K compliance status changes and updates for each of the products that Infoliant tracks with its Year 2000 Network Advisor. Infoliant provides these services to dozens of Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and hundreds of other organizations worldwide for their Y2K assessment, planning, and remediation projects.

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), December 02, 1999

Answers

Just getting ready to post this... Thanks Homer

Pollies come out of your denial and explain....

Will companies that thought they were given correct compliance information go back and revisit now these potential problems with less than a month to go?

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), December 02, 1999.

It is important to understand that these negative changes are due to continual testing by technical experts working full time for companies who's business it is to provide error free software -- at least as error free as possible.

In corporate America, the remediated "mission critical" custom developed systems were not likely tested as vigorously as vendor- developed software. Think about it -- software vendors' business IS THE SOFTWARE. In corporate America, this is not the case.

Moreover, "non mission-critical" software in corporate America (and the governments) is, for the most part, NOT remediated -- much less tested. Example: In my company, of the hundreds of systems (with 10 to 500 programs in each -- median is 120 programs), roughly one-third were deemed "mission-critical". Of those, some were decided later to have been mis-classified. Likewise, some of the "non-mission critical" systems were decided to actually be mission-critical, due to their "close-connections (data exchanges)" with the other "mission- critical systems".

The reclassification happened too late to fold them into the fast moving Remediation Train. Result: They remain (misclassified)"officially" non-mission critical.

Of the systems that, perhaps rightly, should not have been reclassified from "non-mission critical" to "mission-critical", we can't find a single system owner who will say that their particular system is not crucial to their day-to-day job. There are no viable "workarounds" for the majority of these.

This is a very large communications company (a household name around most of the US and Europe). Our Y2K program ran from late 1997 until 8/31/99. To remain politically correct, and to keep the stocks inflated, we are officially 100% compliant.

Bottom line: I recently bought some Motorola two way radios.

-- TA (sea_spur@yahoo.com), December 02, 1999.