The list she made of her system's essential elements includes Microsoft Excel 5.0 and Word 6.0, Claris FileMaker Pro 3.0, and Adobe PageMaker 6.0. Status reports on the central administrative systems indicate that DaFIS and EDB applications are compliant, and that the Banner SIS application is expected to be ready by the end of 1998. With the click of a button, Nancy goes to the UC Office of the President Web site, where a page has been created to foster sharing of relevant Year 2000 information within the University and to reference other Year 2000 documents and sites. The UC Davis Y2K site also includes direct links to vendors' Web sites, where Nancy finds reports on the compliance status of various products she uses. That issue is expected to be fixed in a forthcoming Mac OS upgrade.
Earlier versions are more problematic.
Although Nancy's Mac and operating system are said to be compliant, a number of problems could still arise. Nancy was quick to note the broad generalities and various qualifying statements vendors make about their products' readiness. The core issue lies in the format used by the operating system and applications to store dates, or how the data were entered into each of the applications in her system. For example, Nancy knows that birthdates of retired employees have already been entered into an Excel document. If she updates to a Year 2000 compliant version of Excel, it will interpret these dates, which fall between 1900 and 1929, to years between 2000 and 2029.