Networking giants leave users in Y2K lurch

NEWS 3Com, Cabletron, Cisco and Nortel Networks are among the big name networking firms that are refusing to help users in the US make pre-1997 products Y2K compliant. According to the most recent Compliance Tracker report published by US watchdog, Infoliant, routers and switches made before 1997 will almost certainly not be compliant and the manufacturers have no to upgrade them. Infoliant produces regular millennium compliance status reports on all IT equipment and the latest information shows many networking products in the 'Vendor Will Not Test' category. The organisation claims some companies are not even considering testing some pre-1997 products, while more than one-third of nearly 600 recent changes in Y2K status, were downgrades from 'Compliant' to 'Not Compliant', 'Action Required', 'Pending Evaluation' or 'Vendor Will Not Test'. Kevin Weaver, executive vice president of Infoliant, said: "Rather than experiencing a slowdown in reporting, we've seen the pace of status changes increasing as we moved toward year-end." Numerous Cisco product scores are listed alongside the phrase 'Vendor Will Not Test' including AGS and AGS+ routers, 3000 series routers, specific releases of the Catalyst 5500 LAN switch, CiscoWorks management software and Kalpana EtherSwitches. Cisco said it will not test products that it will no longer be selling or
supporting next year. According to Infoliant and the Nortel Web site, Nortel Networks will not test any product for Y2K compliance built or sold before 1 January 1997. Such products include Ethernet transceivers and host modules, 16-port ATM OC-3 switches and LattisSwitch models 28115 and 28104 Ethernet and Fast Ethernet switches. Also on the list are EtherCall Ethernet-to-ATM switches and several types of the Access Node, Access Stack Node and Access Node Hub routers. 3Com and Cabletron have similar policies. 3Com has discontinued all of its David Systems, ONSemble products and is not testing them for Y2K compliance. The company has discontinued specific models within other product lines, including the LANplex switch line and will not test these products, according to the Infoliant Compliance Tracker database and the company's Web site. Other products, such as NetBuilder II routers and SuperStack II OC-3C ATM modules, are pending evaluation. Cabletron has discontinued several products over the past two years, from some Ethernet, token-ring and FDDI switching and routing modules to SmartSwitch 9000 processors, although the company is offering replacements for some of these products. Cabletron is also not testing several third-party products, such as Cisco router modules and SNA channel-attachment cards. For more information, see http://www.infoliant.com/