IDC Says Small Business Y2K Spending To Continue

As we inch toward mid-1999, more and more companies are entering a market created to curtail projections for a Y2K computer bug that range from foreseeing a minor glitch to heralding worldwide chaos.

According to an International Data Corp. (IDC) report released this week — Small Business to Y2K: “What Me Worry?” — although total small business spending on Y2K preparation has already hit the $10.6 (US$) billion mark, the lucrative market hasn’t dried up yet. IDC projects that there is potentially $6.9 billion awaiting companies providing related remediation solutions.

The IDC study indicates that while small tech-centric companies have taken measures to avoid a possible Y2K problem impacting their business, at least 3.3 million other small firms are procrastinating with regard to examining their preparedness and implementing appropriate solutions.

Among the companies offering solutions is San Francisco, California-based Shaman Corp., who this week announced the implementation of Y2K BIOS testing within its Enterprise Shaman 3.2.3.

An Internet-based software reliability management solution (SRM), Enterprise Shaman provides IT managers with reports on their software’s Y2K compliance status. It also provides information on compliance levels for each desktop’s BIOS and delivers Y2K software updates.

Millennium Quest

The Business Council released the results of two economic outlook surveys it had conducted in Williamsburg, Virginia earlier this month. One of them reported that the impact of Y2K would have a slight boosting effect in 1999, according to a majority of economists polled. Companies like Millennium Quest are racing to seize a share of the Y2K remediation market that might explain those results.

Millennium Quest recently announced its MFX2000 product, which works either as a standalone tool or across a LAN/WAN network to diagnose and fix Y2K problems in DOS, NT, UNIX and Windows platforms. According to the The National Standards Testing Laboratory (NSTL), MFX2000 “was able to detect short dates within the desktop environment at object code level and modify them when required.”

“At this point, most businesses think that Y2K is just a hardware problem,” said Millennium Quest president James Endicott. “They don’t realize you must solve the problem,” as Millennium Quest claims to do, “on all critical levels including; software, applications, data files, operating system and hardware.”

House In Order

Many experts are suggesting that people obtain copies of personal records that might be compromised by computer errors associated with Y2K. Manual copies of such records as credit, medical and social security reports, FBI records disclosure forms, and telemarketing removal letters are available online. Companies like RightToKnow offer Y2K promotional offers, with three differently priced levels of personal information disclosure.