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Daily News Vendors Moving Y2K Goalposts By Sylvia Dennis, Newsbytes. December 28, 1999

Research published today suggests that software vendors are still moving the goalposts when it comes to the Year 2000 issue, despite the fact that the world is 10 days away from the end of the year.

The research, published by Greenwich Mean Time, the Y2K remediation software company, has prompted Karl Feilder, the firm's president, to give a serious public warning over the Year 2000 IT issue.

He warns that, in the last three weeks alone, Microsoft has announced changes in Year 2000 compliance status to more than 500 of its products.

"Other popular vendors have also made important changes," he said, adding that, of the 500 products to which Microsoft has made changes this month, 40 percent require mandatory upgrades which Microsoft has yet to release, and 19 percent have changed their status from 'Y2K compliant' to 'under revision.,'" he said.

Feilder said that, among the products that have changed compliance status are Excel 95, 97, and Excel 2000. He says this could have large-scale consequences for the many companies that believe their Year 2000 projects are complete.

"With these late changes, it's now clear that no company can claim to be 100 percent ready for 2000," he said.

"Yes, some of the changes are relatively minor. However, if you don't apply the latest patches, it could have significant consequences on your business, depending on how you actually use the software," he added.

Feilder's general advice is that PC users should go to Microsoft's Website at http://www.microsoft.com/year2000 and download the latest patches.

"You need to keep doing this until the last minute as more patches are released. I have no doubt Microsoft will be doing its best to release all mandatory upgrades before 2000," he said.

For users of GMT's Check 2000 software, Feilder's advice is very specific.

"Make sure you have the latest version of Check 2000 which is available free to registered users from our Web site at http://updates.gmt-2000.com , and rerun Check 2000 now," he said.

"I urge customers who ran Check 2000 months or even years ago, to make one extra run between now and Dec. 31, as a safeguard against any changes in compliance status," he added.

Fielder went on to say that corporate users of Check 2000 are urged to obtain the latest version from their resellers, and rerun the product before Dec. 31.

GMT's Web site is at http://www.gmt-2000.com .

Reported by Newsbytes.com

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), December 29, 1999