Y2K

1. Identify hardware and software Y2K issues.
   Carry out a hardware and software audit.
   Check with hardware and software vendors/manufacturers for Y2K compliance.
2. Analyse issues and short-list possible solutions.
3. Evaluate viability of solutions taking into consideration time-scales and resources.
   Outsourcing is likely to be expensive with costs steadily increasing.
   Internal recruitment will involve traing issues and retention problems.
4. Prioritise issues to be addressed and draw-up action plans.

By now everybody should be aware that Y2K issues not addressed by 31st of December 1999 could spell disaster come the 1st of January 2000.

The 29th of April 2000 represents another threat, some systems might not recognise the year 2000 as a leap year.

Simply put the Year 2000 bug is a problem of hardware that has an internal time-keeping system not able to correctly does not interpret the year 2000, and software that uses 2 digits to represent the date.

Of course it's not as simple as this. The computer's internal time-keeping system consists of a hardware 'clock' and the time keeping software routines contained in the systems BIOS. New computer systems should be Y2K compliant, and recent computers that are not may have flash-upgradeable BIOS that can be put right with a download from the motherboard manufacturers web site.

Analysis: Y2K action - too little, too late?

Government forced to launch free 'bug busting' courses

Grim times predicted for non-Y2K compliant companies

Action 2000

CTTA Millennium Bomb Page

European Commission Y2K site