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The following Y2K material has been kept available by MITRE for historical purposes only and has not been updated unless noted.

Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) Considerations

Yes, we've all been striving to maximize the use of Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) platforms, operating systems, and applications in all of our new or updated systems. However, the effects of doing this may turn out to be another source of disruption that needs to be managed when it comes to the Year 2000 problem.

Do you know where and how you are using COTS elements in your C4I Systems?
If not, it's time to do an inventory; see Inventory, Assessment, and Planning for further understanding and help with this part of the problem. For more information, see AFCA's Best Practices Assessment Phase.
Are your original COTS elements vendors still able to support your products?
If so, what are they doing about the Year 2000? For help with this problem, please see our DISA COTS Product Compliance Catalog. Depending on the application, some products have two and four-digit date limits. Following is a list of common application date ranges for some of the more popular spreadsheets. Note that the two-digit date range for Microsoft Access is 1999.

Common Application Data Range Limits
ApplicationTwo-Digit Year LimitFour-Digit Year Limit
Excel 9720299999
Lotus 1-2-3 9720492099
Corel Quattro Pro 820503199
Access 9719999999
Lotus Approach 9720299999
Corel Paradox 820509999
Lotus Notes(32-bit)205041247

Source: Software Magazine, August 1998

Is the source code available?
If not, how much will it cost to obtain it?
What about your embedded systems?
They may depend upon COTS systems for their support and development environment!
PC BIOS Problem
Here's an example of the "third-party problem:" You may have heard about the "PC BIOS" difficulties with the Year 2000. Many PCs appear to roll over into or accept dates correctly for the Year 2000; however, after a power-down and power-up sequence, some systems may return dates with the year as 1980, or possibly 1984. This phenomenon is due to the programming logic set up in the Read-Only Memory (ROM) chip, known as the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) Chip, on the PC's motherboard. There have been questions concerning tracing the motherboards to their original manufacturers.

Possible Solutions
For possible solutions to your Year 2000 questions or problems, please see Overview of Solutions.

This should give you an idea of some of the hurdles to fully understanding what you have in your shop. Start your inventory NOW!

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR IMPORTANT NOTICE TO ALL USERS OF THIS SITE
For further information directly related to Year 2000 issues, please contact Year2000@mitre.org

Information is provided by the MITRE Y2K Team and
maintained by our Website Administrator Janet Fredrickson
Last modified: Thursday, 14-Feb-2008 09:21:03 EST