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Here is a warning from David Hall, a y2k programmer: a company must define what it means by compliance when it asks its vendors if they are compliant. It must not allow its vendors to do this. There must be a common definition.
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One major step you need to take before you go to any vendor is to establish YOUR definition of Yr2K compliance. DO NOT ACCEPT any vendor's definition. Your questions, and their answers, are meaningless unless you first establish a foundation of what you mean by compliance. And this definition MUST be your implementation/enterprise wide requirement, not just one or two systems. There is no longer time for one section of a company to define such standards and another section use another standard and then straighten out the mess after installation.
Each vendor, and each user, are able to make their applications/ equipment "compliant" by any one of six or eight ways. And none of these ways are compatible without some bridging in between. You cannot know what bridging must be accomplished without a firm definition of what YOU mean by compliance so that everyone you work with can indicate their differences. Without the appropriate bridging, your systems will either not function, or will produce erroneous data.
To get a feel for how widely vendor definitions of Compliance differ, you might check out our overall infrastructure evaluation at www.year2000.unt.edu, topic 11 page.
Dave Hall
Opinions are my own and not those of my employer
dhall@enteract.com
SIM Yr2K Infrastructure Topic Manager
The Millennium Investment Corporation
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