Software companies holding us back, says Action 2000

Software manufacturers are not all providing sufficiently clear information about their products' millennium compliance status, according to recent research undertaken by Action 2000.

Businesses interviewed by the Government bugbuster complain that some manufacturers are failing to explain clearly the apparently changing compliance status of critical packages. This includes Word 97, FileMaker Pro 4, Excel 95, Outlook 98 and Windows NT Site Server Enterprise 2.

Action 2000 has identified 24 products that have apparently changed compliance status in recent months.

This is a major worry, they say. Chairman Don Cruickshank explains: "Many businesses have checked the status of the software they rely on and the information from the manufacturers indicates that these packages are millennium ready.

"Businesses therefore think they have completed checking their IT systems. I am concerned that businesses have been lulled into a false sense of security and that they are not being sufficiently prompted by manufacturers to recheck their software packages to ensure that they have not regressed to a non-compliant status."

43% of sampled companies with more than 250 employees have reported software manufacturers downgrading some product compliance.

Of sampled companies with 10-249 employees, 16% claim to have discovered the non-compliance of previously compliant products.

Just over half of the FTSE 500 companies sampled (54%) have experienced this problem of change in product compliance and two-in-five (38%) of these companies have stated that this has caused a significant delay to their Year 2000 preparations.

Cruickshank added: "This is an alarming situation at this late stage. Even if you've checked before, I urge businesses using these software packages to consult Action 2000's Software Status Database. It provides easy to understand and up to date information on the millennium status of major software packages. From our website, you can link directly with manufacturers' fixes and patches as well as being able to access information on where to go and who to ask for help."

The database is available via the Action 2000 website on www.bug2000.co.uk.

Elliott Chase