RE: Y2K -Reply

[mzebarth@canberra.com]

I find it very interesting that a commercial company would be so cavalier as to 
take a "no problems" attitude toward Y2K. The issue of Y2K compliance does not 
end with consideration of certain individual products. At Canberra, we consider 
not only the performance of our own products, but of all the ancillary products 
that may affect the performance of our products. For instance, there are BIOS 
chips that do comply, there are versions of DOS and Windows that do not comply. 
There are date and time chips in older units that do not comply. There are data 
base programs and compilers that do not comply. If one reads the literature, 
there are even peripheral devices that do not comply.

No one intends to gouge their customers, but it is irresponsible to take a "no 
problems" attitude with so many issues out there. The statement that a product 
is Y2K compliant has legal ramifications. I can not imagine a customer having a 
positive reaction if his access control system fails on 1/1/00 after we told 
him our product was compliant, but he finds out that the underlying operating 
system, or database or compiler fails. Most of our customers not only ask us if 
our products are compliant, they ask us to prove it. We have designed a Y2K 
compliance testing program that tests each of our products in their operating 
environment to make sure that they not only do not exhibit the well documented 
"00" problem, but also the leap year and interrupt problems.

Finally, Y2K compliance goes beyond assuring our customers that all of our 
products will work in the year 2000 and beyond, it includes a commitment to 
deal with our internal Y2K problems, so that when a customer calls in for 
support in the Year 2000, he won't have his call mishandled by a confused call 
processing system.