The Gartner boys keep saying that only 8  10% of Y2K failures will occur in the first week or so of January. Conclusion: the effects wont be so bad all at once.

I can offer a business perspective on this. Maybe some of the skilled IT folks on this NG can offer some technical thoughts.

In my company, not all Y2K failures are equal. Some will produce erroneous, but non-critical, results, while others would completely shut us down.

It seems that most of the potential Y2K failures which could occur in 1999 involve planning, projections, and accounting functions. These kinds of snafus should be easy to keep quiet and will not immediately impact our day-to-day, bread and butter operations. Yes, we may make bad decisions based on bad data, but this wont be obvious for months.

However, once 1-1-00 arrives, our day-to-day, bread and butter operations must be compliant or else were in trouble. We wont be able to keep it quiet and well be in big trouble right away. The functions Im referring to include: manufacturing (embedded systems), order processing, shipping, billing, etc.

These key functions wont need to process a year 2000 date during 1999. They are all transactions based solely on the date they actually occur.

(Obviously Im simplifying things here. Manufacturing needs to plan ahead. But if our projections seem screwy in Dec., well just order what we bought the previous month and no one will notice for awhile. Im also ignoring key third-party considerations: suppliers, utilities, infrastructure, panicky employees, etc.)

So, it seems to me that, yeah, Gartner may be right, only 8% of Y2K failures will hit Jan. 1. But those 8% could be the real butt-kickers of the economy.

Any thoughts?

-- rick blaine (y2kazoo@hotmail.com), March 24, 1999

Answers

Rick,

Here's what PNG had to say about financial lookaheads in an article he wrote:

http://www2.gol.com/users/png/fy_rollover.html

[snip]

Fiscal years have little to do with company or country operations. Producing products, providing services and distributing them are the elements that create commerce. Looking ahead in projections and deciding where and when you are going to post the results is keeping score...not producing, providing or distributing.

[snip]

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 24, 1999.

Response to Gartner: only 8% of failures on Jan. 1 - But, are all failures equal??

Rick,

I think your analysis is spot on.

-- (someone@somewhere.com), March 24, 1999.