Gartner To Boost Japan Rating In Y2K Survey

18 Mar 1999, 12:10 AM CST By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. TOKYO, JAPAN,

Ongoing Y2K preparedness work by companies and organizations in Japan and Thailand will see those countries' rankings revised upwards in the latest survey of national Y2K readiness by the Gartner Group.

According to draft results of the survey, obtained by Newsbytes and scheduled for official publication later this month, Gartner is revising its prediction for Y2K-related failures in Japan from rank 3, which signifies 50 percent of companies can expect at least one mission critical system to fail, to rank 2, which predicts one third of companies can expect a major failure.

With the increase, Japan's ranking puts it alongside nations such as Singapore, South Korea, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Brazil. At its previous position, it was judged to be equal with Austria, Germany, South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, India, the Czech Republic and Yugoslavia, among others.

Since the previous survey was undertaken, Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi has established a Y2K task force to ensure the country suffers no major problems related to the Year 2000 glitch and has also announced inter-government deals and initiatives with the United States and other APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum) member nations on tackling the problem.

In the only other revision to the rankings, Gartner will boost Thailand's rating from a rank 4, where the research agency expects two thirds of companies will be hit, to rank 3, the level previously held by Japan.

Leading the world in Y2K readiness remains Australia, Belgium, Bermuda, Canada, Denmark, Holland, Ireland, Israel, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and United States.

Reported By Newsbytes News Network, http://www.newsbytes.com 00:10 CST Reposted 00:28 CST

(19990318/WIRES ASIA, PC, BUSINESS/JPY2K/PHOTO) Copyright (c) Post-Newsweek Business Information, Inc. All rights reserved.

-- Norm (nwo@hotmail.com), March 18, 1999

Answers

Norm,

Thanks for the update on Gartner.

Keep well,

-- Watchful (seethesea@msn.com), March 18, 1999.

In a national survey of 21,500 companies in 67 business fields -- to which 55 percent responded -- only about half said they were taking any measures.

Small- and medium-sized firms continue to lag behind, with some 30 percent saying they had yet to start addressing the issue. Officials believe the prolonged recession and general lack of awareness among small business owners have contributed to the slow progress in this sector.

<:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 18, 1999.

I'd kinda like PNG's take on this.

-- Vic (Roadrunner@compliant.com), March 18, 1999.

Norm, in your opinion is this evidence that the problem has been avoided in Japan?

In your opinion, should all residents of Japan prepare for infrastructure failure of 1 to 30 days in length?

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 18, 1999.

Norm: Hate to burst your bubble, but you are in denial again. After the last "World Y2K Conference" or some such thing a couple of months ago, the official press release stated that there was concern that publishing bad numbers for the Y2K laggards would make things worse, so they would be artificially raising them in the future. They were very matter-of-fact about it and there were several threads here, on GN's site and c.s.y2k discussing the lunacy of it all.

So Norm, this recent upgrading by Gartner means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Get it yet?

-- a (a@a.a), March 18, 1999.

On February 16, 1999, I wrote the following:

"I'm going to go on record and predict that the next Gartner Group report on world y2k status will show Japan moving up from level III (50% failure) to level II - one step below the U.S."

PNG on Gartner

This Newsbytes article is based on "...draft results... obtained by Newsbytes..." and has not been through the spin cycle yet. I'll be posting more this weekend about this and a Japan Financial Update [If you think Japanese banks are in trouble, wait until you hear about the world's largest retirement fund].

-- PNG (png@gol.com), March 18, 1999.

PNG: good point! So much information to process I forgot all about it. I posted your prediction on this forum right after you made it here:

A prediction on the Gartner Group from PNG

Looks like that James Gardner guy that said you were full of shit is eating some serious crow about now!

-- a (a@a.a), March 18, 1999.

the new rating doesn't impress me. in my experience, japanese companies are notorious at lying and denial.

-- jocelyne slough (jonslough@tln.net), March 19, 1999.

Who Says That Gartner Group Don't Have Anything To Sell? More Information On Gartner Group And Their Services:

Lee Commission: County Won't Pay Bill For Y2K Advice

"FORT MYERS - What's the price of bad advice? How about $590 an hour? Lee County commissioners Tuesday declined to pay a $38,000 bill from The Gartner Group, the consultant that told them they had to spend almost $14 million on a job since done for $700,000."

-- Info-Boy (ib@nowhere.com), March 20, 1999.