At 12:52 PM 12/5/97 -0800, Michele Conant wrote:
>     I think that everyone should understand that these tools were also
>     developed so that the 3rd party software that we run on our systems
>     can be tested along with our home grown applications. The main reason
>     we needed a date simulation tool is because our 3rd party vendors have
>     embedded themselves so deep into the systems that any forward change
>     in the system date would cause THIER software to expire. This would
>     require System Admin. to contact them each time this happened so that
>     we could get a NEW software key to reactivate the 3rd party software.
>     I think that the 3rd party software vendors should have forseen this and
>     came up with a painless plan for THIER customers.

Speaking only from our perspective, we contacted the Y2K vendors after their
respective announcements and worked with them to obtain the necessary
information
so as to bypass their products date advancement for the security areas within
our products.  In one case, we did not receive the needed information/etc.
until mid-October, at which time we immediately implemented it and began
retro-testing with both Y2K products.

FYI....vendors don't normally pro-actively notify other vendors about a new
product they are working on because others may elect to develop their own
offering and attempt to beat the original vendor to market.  So I'm not sure
how 'forseen' applies (some folks design/code/test faster than others....).

> At least with TimeMachine
>     I can exclude the 3rd party software that will expire when the system
>     data/time is changed for testing.

The same is true for HourGlass.

Also, I recall specifically encouraging one of the Y2K product vendors to
explicitly highlight this as a means to prevent possible problems with other
3rd party software and for the user to contact the vendor for a product update
which would work in conjunction with their Y2K tool.  I have no idea if my
suggestion was implemented....



/jf
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                         Friday, December 5th

            Today, in 1933 - The 21st Amendment took affect.
   Tomorrow (Sat), in 1790 - The U.S. Congress met for its first
                             session in Philadelphia.

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