If you're trying to get a handle on just how serious the year 2000 problem is in the world beyond the U.S., a trio of statements from the Global Millennium Foundation make it starkly plain:
Indeed, the Financial Times on Dec. 3 quoted Canada's auditor general, Denis Desautels, saying he is "very concerned that many essential government services may be disrupted at the start of 2000. Work on the systems supporting these services is falling behind an already tight schedule."
Yet Gartner Group, a consulting firm that's made Y2K a specialty, places the Land of the Rising Puck in the top rank of countries dealing with the computer crisis. That means Gartner expects only 15 percent of companies in those lands to suffer a "mission critical" system failure.
Gartner defines mission critical failures as causing any of these unpleasantries: a shutdown of business, production or product delivery operations; health hazard to individuals; considerable revenue loss; a significant litigation expense or loss; and significant loss of customers or revenue.
Here's the status of other countries:
Sort of OK (15% of companies experience a mission critical failure):
Australia, Belgium, Bermuda, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Israel, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, U.K., U.S.
Not Real Good (33% of companies experience a mission critical failure):
Brazil, Chile, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan.
Quite Bad (50% of companies experience a mission critical failure):
Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Bulgaria, Colombia, Czech Republic, Germany, Guatemala, India, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, North Korea, Poland, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Yugoslavia.
Scary (66% of companies experience a mission-critical failure):
Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chad, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Lithuania, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Somalia, Sudan, Thailand, Uruguay, Vietnam, Zaire, Zimbabwe. (John J. Edwards III, ABCNews.com)
This analysis of how different countries could fare is just that, of course--an analysis from an outsider's point of view. The chaos and confusion in developed countries--whether there's little or much--may well be worse than that in the underdeveloped countries, simply because the former are so much more dependent on computers and technology than the latter are.
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