November 10, 1997
Year-2000 Problems Affect Desktops Too
By Bob O'Donnell
If you've followed the ongoing saga of Year-2000 problems, there's probably a good
chance that, like me, you walked away thinking it's really only about old mainframe apps.
After all, almost all the emphasis has been on large-scale development efforts and all the
tools that have been developed to help combat the problem. The nearly complete absence of
references to desktop-related issues and even assurances that desktops basically won't be
affected has lulled many of us into thinking that we needn't be concerned.
Recently, though, I've begun to notice statements from vendors about how the latest
versions of their desktop software apps and even drivers are Year-2000 compliant. Well,
that's all fine and good, but the message that I'm suddenly getting here is that all (or
at least many of) their previous versions aren't. So, naturally, I started wondering
whether desktop computers and desktop apps may have more problems with the year than many
of us had been led to believe.
Unfortunately, it looks as if they probably will. InfoWorld's Test Center has been
tackling this issue and found that there are some very real problems that corporations and
even individuals can, and perhaps will, run into once the clock rolls over to January 1,
2000. The results of the Test Center's thorough survey, which you can read in this week's Product Analysis, show that there are
a wide variety of potential issues -- everything from the infamous BIOS date rollover
problem to spreadsheet calculations and more -- that could cause some real problems for
desktop users and the servers and networks they're connected to.
Admittedly, some of them are relatively easy to fix, particularly if you're only
dealing with one or a few machines. But even the easy ones can turn into monstrous
projects if you're talking about having to individually update several thousand
workstations. Then there are the problems that aren't so easy to fix and may require a
whole slew of hardware and software updates. And finally, some of them will require
large-scale education projects for end users so that, for example, they don't build
spreadsheets that could generate inaccurate results because of problems with dates.
Now, the cynic in me has to wonder why relatively new computers and software
applications should have this problem at all. After all, most computers and software in
use today were created after 1990. Could the programmers and engineers who built these
products really be that short-sighted? I admit that I don't understand all the programming
issues that may be involved, but something that can't adequately handle a date that's less
than ten years away is just plain stupid.
Then again, it could be a case of planned obsolescence. ISVs, in particular, are
notorious for figuring out ways to encourage people to upgrade and there's nothing like
the fear of an impending system meltdown to get people to go out and spend their money. I
have to hope (and frankly, I really think) that greed wasn't the motivating factor in
developing products with hidden time bombs, but I wouldn't be surprised if vendors take
advantage of the situation and, in fact, profit from their own previous incompetence or
shortsightedness.
The right thing to do, in my opinion, would be to offer free upgrades for any Year
2000-related problem, but somehow I think that many apps will only offer such problem
fixes in their next for-charge upgrade.
Regardless of how the situation develops, though, it's clear that desktop users and IS
managers need to think about and plan for Year-2000 problems for desktop PCs. Like the
bigger mainframe issues, it's going to take planning and proactive action to make sure the
millennium arrives without your computer's world coming to an end.
©
Copyright 1997, by InfoWorld Publishing Corp., a
subsidiary of IDG Communications, Inc. Reprinted from InfoWorld,
155 Bovet Road, San Mateo, CA 94402. Further reproduction is prohibited.
