Y2K-fix sales slow ... but it won't last

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Despite an 11th-hour rush by businesses desperate to make their PCs Year 2000-compliant, demand for Y2K "fixer" products has not lived up to industry expectations of a bonanza.

That's the view of Ben Bernstone, marketing manager at Auckland-based Microbe, a company set up to distribute Check 2000, a British-developed program that promises to fix hardware and software Y2K problems.

While the product has sold "pretty well" into the corporate market, retail sales, at 64 outlets such as Dick Smith Electronics, Blue Star and Whitcoulls Office Products, have been "pathetic with a capital P."

"It has been very disappointing. People just don't know about the problems. Average consumers think that their PCs are Year 2000-compliant simply because that's what they were told when they bought them."

Mr Bernstone believes that research by Check 2000's developer, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which claims to have captured 60 per cent of the worldwide market for Y2K fixes, shows that many PC owners will have a rude awakening next year.

GMT tests show that the Basic Input Output System (Bios), hardware-resident software that starts the computer running, will fail in 87 per cent of PCs made before 1997.

For PCs made in 1998 the failure rate is 18 per cent, and only those computers manufactured this year received a 100 per cent pass mark in GMT's hardware tests.

According to Mr Bernstone, failure of the Bios represents only 5 per cent of the problem.

He says most operating systems will need to be reconfigured, and obsolete but still popular packages such as Microsoft's Office 97 will require "patches," one of which was released as recently as last month.

Like many other software manufacturers, Microsoft has set up a web site to distribute Year 2000 patches and fixes, and these are available at www.microsoft.com/y2k.

Further Year 2000 resources and links are available at the Government Y2K site, www.y2k.govt.co.nz.

GMT has documented 5500 known software problems and claims that 64 per cent of applications will begin to generate faults and errors from January 1.

"I think the majority of small businesses will see problems next year," says Mr Bernstone.

"We'll see some furious activity throughout January as they cope with shutdowns and errors on a day-to-day basis."

Mr Bernstone says one of his clients, a $25 million turn-over distribution company with 15 PCs - "every one engaged in a mission- critical activity" - had sought his services as a consultant as late as last week.

"They've done nothing, absolutely nothing."

He says the first three machines examined failed the Bios test and all the PCs will need an operating system patch. The company's server, running Windows NT 4, will require a service pack to be installed, and Office 97 will need two patches.

"I'm not even looking at their data," he says.

"Come next year, if they can't invoice and they can't track stock movements they are in trouble. I suggest that there are hundreds or thousands of businesses out there like that."

Asked whether he personally will be working on New Year's Eve, Mr Bernstone's reply is emphatic: "No. My work's over."

"We are still being contacted by companies but we are not going to get involved at this stage - I'll be taking a holiday."

He says it is a "damned good question" what he will do after that.

Chris Fitzgerald, managing director of Soft Solutions, distributed what he now regards as an unnecessarily wide range of Y2K fixes.

While he has made "somewhere around 1000 sales of all kinds," with Check 2000 as the best seller, demand had largely faded away by September.

"The Y2K problem has given a steady income to a number of specialist suppliers but I don't think it has made anyone rich, which is what a number of people expected 18 months ago.

"The only people who made money out of it were consultants who convinced their clients they needed to be checked."

Mr Fitzgerald says his company is still selling the Y2KPC hardware-only fix as dealers continue to find PCs that are not compliant.

Sales of Y2K products will continue into the New Year, but he says that there is "zero interest" in post-Y2K products such as Greenwich Mean Time's Watchdog.

Watchdog checks files, including scanning e-mails for non-compliant attachments such as spreadsheet documents.

"I don't believe that the spreadsheet problem matters as much as the manufacturers of the solutions would like us to believe," Mr Fitzgerald says.

Richard Batchelar, country manager of Symantec, manufacturer of the Norton range of PC utilities including Norton 2000, says he has been surprised by the profile of customers for this program.

"Our expectation was that the opportunity would be largely for business sales but it's swung the other way."

Mr Batchelar estimates that Norton 2000, available in consumer and corporate editions, accounts for between 17 and 20 per cent of the market.

While sales of the corporate edition were boosted by five or six large sites with over 1000 PCs each - collectively representing 20,000 unit sales - 60 or 70 per cent of sales are to consumers.

"Corporates have taken the approach of update all of our software then we won't need Y2K fixes. But that ignores backed-up data and network issues. It's a very vanilla way of doing things."

Mr Batchelar says that Norton 2000 is still selling and "a significant amount of product is going out of the door."

The product will continue to be developed until February or March to support new products such as MYOB, but the impetus is switching to anti-viral software.