http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a1114LBY675reulb-19990407&qt=y2k&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486

relevant quote:

"KUALA LUMPUR, April 7 (Reuters) - Malaysia has given its bureaucracy until September to tackle the Y2K bug in their computer systems, a government official said on Wednesday.

Some 200 million ringgit ($52.6 million) has been budgeted to overcome the problem, Deputy Energy, Communications and Multimedia Minister Chan Kong Choy said."

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), April 07, 1999

Answers

For Hawaii residents, this could be of special interest; I understand that nearly all our fuel comes from Malaysia.

That "70% compliant" figure would put the southeast asian nation at the head of the class for preparedness, wouldn't it?

PNG? Anyone?

-- Sara Nealy (keithn@aloha.net), April 15, 1999.

I know that the Japanese government prompted IBM (Japan) and HP (Japan) to set up a task force the first of the year to travel throughout Asian countries offering technical assistance. The concept of measuring remediation rates using money spent or percentage of systems completed is suspect with me (and most people, I hope).

It's not that I think everyone is lying. The threat of debilitating lawsuits is more of a western phenomemon and tort law jugements (if any) are usually small in Asian countries. There is not the panic-prevention, public awareness factor in most Asian countries. The number of people "computer aware" is small. Panic would only happen after an event.

Both measurements are simply meaningless numbers. The simple explanation is:

System A may not be as complex to remediate as System B.

System C may be more important than A or B.

System C may use more data from B than A.

Yet, System C requires both A and B to be remediated.

-- PNG (png@gol.com), April 15, 1999.

PNG -

You bring up an interesting point. Are "organisations" outside the US issuing different messages about their readiness than US organizations? I ask because there has been much discussion of the fact that very few US entities have publically and loudly declared themselves "Y2K-Ready", and one reason given for this lack of news is the fear of litigation. Given that other countries have very different legal systems, shouldn't we see large numbers of foreign companies telling all of us that they're "Ready"?

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), April 15, 1999.