Yesterday I received an e-mail on my website from a lady whose father is an expeditor for a huge international construction project company. He told her that one of the vendors his company buys from spent $34,000 to get its computer systems Y2K compliant. Unfortunately, most of the manufacturers the vendor deals with are not compliant and the data exchange between them caused the vendor's inventory and billing software to crash totally. The vendor is now keeping inventory and doing billing by hand and losing customers fast because it cannot keep up with the necessary pace of business.

This is something that is new to me. I know that corrupt data will be created and exchanged between compliant and non-compliant systems, but I thought this would not be a problem until 2000. I also thought that the problem would be simply bad information being imported and exported from one system to another; I didn't realize this might literally destroy a compliant firm's business software program. Any comments on this? It seems to be a new and unexpected wrinkle.

-- cody varian (cody@y2ksurvive.com), April 06, 1999

Answers

Nothing new about it. Welcome to Y2K ......

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), April 06, 1999.

Sounds like the data exchange is ready on one end and not the other. Somebody needs to study both sides of the interface and the data stream to figure out what's going on. Glad it's not my job! Depending on the various types of transactions, it could be a nightmare. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 06, 1999.

Agree with BigDog, If your spanking new compliant software expects 1999 and some noncompliant thing sends it 99 you've got problems.

I assume this would have been some sort of PC thing (I'm not a PC'er), because chances are that on a mainframe you'd get some kind of 'wrong length record' type of error in this sort of situation and the step would abend without updating anything.

Yet again, inter-system interfaces are where the problems are nearly certain to occur, make sure your staff are expert in IEBGENER, File-Aid, and/or the various SORT features that will let you 'bridge' your way out of this kind of problem.

Nemo.

-- Nemo (nemo@nowhereatall.com), April 06, 1999.

Dr. Gary North has empasized this for a long time. It is real . It is here. It will be here for a long long time Good luck to you, Bob P

-- bob Pilcher (rpilc99206@aol.com), April 06, 1999.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!!!!

-- INVAR (gundark@sw.net), April 06, 1999.

Stop trolling here. It is called the Y2K problem for a reason. Not the Y1999 problem.

-- fed up with trolls (fedupfo@hallfiax.con), April 06, 1999.

Hey fed up, you stole my line! (grin) <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 06, 1999.

Hysterical! A very "good" post, Cody. "a lady whose father is an expeditor for a huge international construction project company. He told her that one of the vendors" How many times removed from the source is this? This has been good for a chuckle or two. Thank you.

-- Amused (really@amused.now), April 07, 1999.

Well, Amused, since you seem to want to be a jerk, I'll simplify it so even someone like you can understand. The lady, whose name I have, was given this information by her father who saw it happen. That's pretty close to the source, close enough for a reasonable person, but perhaps that doesn't include you.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), April 07, 1999.

Pay Amused no attention, cody. He depends on the FACTUAL news as presented by CNN. THEY research their stories.

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), April 07, 1999.

I do wish we had more details on what "crash totally" really is, but I have no doubt that this is a true story cody. If an edit program kicks out EVERY transaction, is this considered a crash? If it accepts them, but they are shifted and totally meaningless, is this a crash? Do us a favor and try to get some more info on this one. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 07, 1999.

My good Mr. Cody: of course I understood perfectly well the first time around, please, no need to simplify. I only find terribly amusing that only after a dissenting voice speaks, then verification of your post is requested (kudoes to you,my good Mr. Sysman). And for the time being, your post is still a "fire truck" legend three times removed (heh heh heh heh... please keep it coming).

-- Amused (still@chuckling.edu), April 07, 1999.

I take the Y2K issue seriously but not every "crash" may be Y2K related. Crashes occur frequently with or without Y2K involvement. I fear Y2K may mask poor software development. Of course, bad software is frequently produced when folks are in a hurry, i.e., to beat the y2k deadline.

-- Johnny Kicklighter (kicklighter.johnny@mcleodusa.net), April 07, 1999.

Good Grief! Name the company.

And please no silly excuse about privacy.

-- Randers (Randers@MSN.com), April 07, 1999.

Suggested: that many of the pollys are essentially very lazy people and do not deserve to be 'catered' to (reacted to, responded to) by extensive efforts since they will never accept or admit what does not agree with their POV. All the energy you or I expend in trying to re- presenting information is being wasted on them. Let them be.

Reasonable people will ask reasonable questions which deserve the effort. Lazy, ignorant, foolish pollyannas are not worth even the minor seconds it takes to dis them, let alone address their 'questions'.

Do not work for stupid people. It will never disabuse them of their stupidity and in fact only feeds their arrogance. Do not effort to respond to their condescending, smirky questions. Let them eat their own 'wisdom' in 9 months.

-- David (C.D@I.N), April 07, 1999.

Cody,

I think this warrants further disclosure for the following reasons: 1) Unless the company is identified and this can be ascertained, it is a rumor. 2) It's high time we knew what was happening in corporate America and the problems that are surfacing due to Y2k. There are only 9 months left, and many of us are trying to assess what the consequences will be. Without verification of some type, this is a rather useless story.

By using the "Urban Legend" rhetoric of a friend of a friend, it puts a very bad light on us "wackos". I say this with all sincerety. I'm not necessarily doubting this is true, but would like to say here & now....it's way past time for us to be covering up and hiding the truth. Too many people's lives depend on this, and we must take a stand at some point and do the hard part of standing up for what is true and right.

I'm sorry if this puts you in a quandry.....but we all must face this and do what we can, when we can. I truly believe we owe this to ourselves and others.

-- Cary Mc from Tx (Caretha@compuserve.com), April 07, 1999.

It's an expected by-product of several million companies remediating their programs, and several ten of millions not yet remediated.

It's an expected symptom (also resolved by realistic full-up or "live" testing) of what will happen several millions times this year and next year as more and more processes (not just programs, not just databases, not just automated purchases, but whole industrial and commercial processes) get changes over.

What's with these demands for "identfy the company"? This is as reliable (if not more reliable) a source of information as CNN - whose chief of economic news division evidently wants the federal government to write their stories and present a single, concise, scripted end to this mess. Here, the data is at least not corrupted by being passed through federal hands, editors and producers, scripts, and talking heads. To illustrate the problem, the example does not need to be PC or mainframe (at only 33,000 to repair, I'd suspect PC-based) but that this company tries to become compliant, and faced problems with data exchange as its venders were not compliant.

Yes, this is a likely Y2K failure -- and it will happen much more frequently in the next 12-15 months, continuing through next year.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (Cook.R@csaatl.com), April 08, 1999.