There's a publication called the ITAA Update that comes out every Friday from the Information Technology Association of America. They're one of those huge and well-respected technology trade organizations based in Washington, D.C.. They get called in to testify before congress all the time, help them understand computer's relation to big government, etc..

A man named Harris Miller is the president of the organization. Last spring, on May 7, 1998, he was testify before the House Ways and Means Committee about y2k. Here's a little of what he had to say that day:

"You have asked ITAA to provide an assessment of the nation's Year 2000 preparedness. Let me go on record publicly with what those in the know are thinking and saying privately. We are very worried... The focus of conversation among those best versed in this issue is about how we are going to clean up after what appears now to be an inevitable train wreck. As a society, we are on the point of conceding failure.

"It's crazy. It's frustrating. It cannot be happening. But it is.

"Now the 'smart' questions have shifted to concentrate on contingency planning, crisis management, and liability."

Anyway... His organization sends out that update every Friday. It focuses on what they see happening in Washington regarding y2k. Lately, some of the nation's government y2k leaders have been saying that things are "coming right along," that agencies (that looked like complete dead ducks) have been making "remarkable progress," so on and so forth: "Everything's fine, don't worry." A lot of people familiar with the year 2000 problem think they're just saying that to keep the general public from panicking while they try to figure out what they're going to do.

The following are just some very brief (and completely out of context) excerpts from yesterday's ITAA update. What these highlights point out is just how absurd most of those reassurances probably are. These highlights mainly point out the staggering amount of work there is left to do in the 10 months that remain.

If you'd like to read the entire ITAA update these excerpts came from (and find out how you can subscribe to it), just click here.)

The Post Office...

...100,000 pieces of hardware and software, almost 600 vendors and suppliers, 38,000 nationwide facilities, and 152 "severe and critical" information systems to move 650 million pieces of mail a day to 130 million households and businesses.

...while the organization expects to spend $607 million to fix its systems, to date the Postal Service has made Y2K outlays of only $200 million.

...8000 critical suppliers, as of last month it knew the Y2K status of just 349. At Postal Service headquarters, 661 critical suppliers were polled for their Y2K status. Corcoran said nearly half failed to respond and, of the 349 that replied, "The Postal Service determined that 254 are at high risk of not being Y2K ready."

...just five postage meter manufacturers generate some $21 billion in Postal Service Revenue. "As of January 1999, the Postal Service had not completed its inventory of internal and external data exchanges," she said. Of the 5700 data exchanges in place, 4300 have been assessed and about 2000 identified as critical, she said. "As of now, 123 of the 2000 have been reported as Y2K ready."

...120,000 personal computers and about 14,000 servers and has categorized 2000 unique types of hardware and software. While Y2K solutions have been developed for 1600 of the 2000, Corcoran said that "Deploying the solutions will be a challenge because the Postal Service does not know which specific personal computers and servers are not Y2K compliant."

The HCFA... (Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, etc.)

...However, GAO views its progress on external mission-critical systems as overstated. As an example, Willemssen reported that none of the 54 systems that HCFA has reported as compliant were in fact Year 2000 ready. All have qualifications, which, according to HCFA, are "minor problems." GAO is not so sure.

"A specific example of a system reported as compliant with qualifications is the Florida standard system, used by 29 contractors. This system had one qualification that consisted of 22 test failures," Willemssen reported.

IRS...

...IRS missed its target date for upgrading systems software and hardware for mainframes, minis and personal computers. Delays on the mincomputer/file server upgrade will push testing to October 1999. On the personal computer front, White said the IRS plans to reduce its number of commercial software and hardware products from 4000 to 60.

...On contingency planning, White said the agency has slipped its schedule for 36 different plans, originally due for completion last December. Instead, the agency has staggered its approach to plan completion with several due by the end of March and the balance by the end of May.

-- Bill (billdale@lakesnet.net), February 27, 1999