The Gartner Group is surveying companies every three months to see how they are coming along with their Y2K prep. There is (as always) good news and bad news...

Gartner sees widespread Y2K woes

A new global survey of year 2000 readiness found that many firms don't plan to test new systems, and up to two-thirds of businesses in some countries -- mainly Asia, South America and the Middle East -- are expected to have at least one significant, mission-critical failure.

However, the research from Gartner Group, Inc. also found some promising signs. Companies worldwide are spending more of their information technology budgets on fixing computer systems so that they can handle dates from Jan. 1, 2000, onward, according to the survey.

The U.S. continues to lead the way in preparedness, followed closely by Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Canada and Australia. Western European countries are generally making good progress, with the exception of Germany, which is "quite a bit behind" other nations in the region, said Gartner research director Lou Marcoccio today during a news conference outlining the research.

Two-thirds of companies in Russia, China, India, the Middle East -- excluding Israel -- Argentina and Venezuela, and half the companies in Japan, Germany, Mexico and Malaysia are expected to have one major mission critical failure, Marcoccio said.

Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner is surveying 15,000 companies in 87 countries worldwide every three months to track their progress on year 2000 compliance. Worldwide, 23% of all companies have yet to begin dealing with the issues. "That sounds like perhaps a high number and, yes, it is as far as actual numbers of companies. However, one year ago, 50% of all companies had not started," Marcoccio said.

Marcoccio also said an unpleasant surprise may lurk for U.S. companies that think their insurance policies will cover millennium bug losses. More than 40 states have said that insurance companies can exclude losses resulting from year 2000-spawned business interruptions, "even though these policies were sold under the assumption that business interruptions would be covered -- period," Marcoccio said.

Insurance, banking and investment services are ahead of other industries on compliance work. At the other end of the spectrum, two-thirds of the companies in food processing, government services, agriculture, health care and education, and half of the companies in semiconductors, chemical processing or manufacturing, construction, petroleum, power, gas and water utilities and the legal industry are expected to have a major mission-critical failure owing to year 2000 problems.

Failures already have begun and will continue over a wide time span. "The failures are not all going to occur on Jan. 1, 2000, or Jan. 2, 2000," Marcoccio said.

The survey did find increased awareness of the problem, however. In 1997, just 5% of IT budgets were earmarked to deal with the problem. That figure jumped to 18% for the first two quarters of this year and is expected to rise to 29% by year's end.

While that might be viewed as good news in one sense, it's bad news for other areas of IT budgets, where companies are foregoing spending. More dismal still is the attitude apparently being taken by IT professionals. A Gartner survey of 6,000 IT professionals found in November of 1997 that 38% said they will take one month's to three months' worth of money out of the bank to cover expenses as 2000 approaches. Recently, that figure jumped to 50%. Marcoccio acknowledged that this attitude wasn't totally paranoid, saying that serious worldwide disruptions could be in the offing. "This could have a considerable effect on the global economy and the world in general," he said.

-- Chana Campos (chana@campos.org), August 05, 1998

Answers

Cite your source

-- Cite your source (Cite@your_source.org), August 05, 1998.

Read DeJager's "Press Clipppings" There are several sources for this story on that website. I seriously doubt if anyone posting here would make something like that up!

-- Dave (dave22@concentric.net), August 06, 1998.

here is the url for the story above

http://webserv.vnunet.com/www_user/plsql/pkg_vnu_news.right_frame?p_story=60461

-- michael (michael813@yahoo.com), August 07, 1998.