My friend works for a large Indian auto maker. He and I are GIs. A few weeks back, he told me an amazing thing. His manager just handed him down a questionnaire from a major Indian state-owned Steel manufacturer. It was, of course, a Y2K-compliance questionnaire. What is amazing is that my friend is a mechanical engineer and has got nothing to do with Y2K remediation. Yet he was assigned the duty to fill the questionnaire. He somehow filled it (with a laugh, being a GI) and sent it to the steel maker. I can now imagine what the steel maker must be saying: '87% of our vendors have assured that they are Y2K-compliant.' So much for vendor Y2K-compliance statements.

-- Parthasarathy Srinivasan, India (psrinivasan99@yahoo.com), December 19, 1999

Answers

The whole buisness of sending out questionaires to determine if your suppliers are compliant strikes me as completely unreliable, but no one seems to have a better idea how to go about it. I suspect most such forms were filled out as you described above. In a few weeks I imagine very many are going to be saying, "what the hell do we do now?" as they stare helplessly at busted equipment.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), December 19, 1999.

It seems that your experience is the rule here in the US as well, rather than the exception.

My best friend's family is from India. I would be very interested in hearing your predictions for India, and surrounding nations if you have time.

-- Hokie (va@va.com), December 19, 1999.

All you have to do is ask people that work in the Software space what the story is with Software development companies.

Interesting, how many said products are Y2K compliant only to find out 3 months later that it's not??

How many? Who kmows, I am starting to wonder if the people that write the code know? Yea, something may work by itself, plug it into the rest of it's world and what happens?

I am really trying to figure out a way to be optimistic about this global problem?

Q: How many people on this thread work for Companies? Q: How many use computers as tools to do there job? Q: How many have been contacted by their IT folks regarding readiness of the machines?

Good luck, still hoping it's gonna be a BITR, just trying to convince myself how?

-- Rich (Rluck@aol.com), December 19, 1999.

Hokie,

>I would be very interested in hearing your predictions for India, and surrounding nations if you have time.

Sure. I will keep reporting events from India. As for predictions, I find it very difficult to predict because there is not enough real Y2K info barring the spin from the govt. In any case, if oil goes down, so does India along with the rest of the world. India imports a large percentage of oil from Iraq, which, as you all know, has adopted the FoF strategy. And in this context, it is pitiable that the average man on the street hasn't even heard the word 'Y2K'. The blindness of mankind...

-- Parthasarathy Srinivasan, India (psrinivasan99@yahoo.com), December 20, 1999.