Hello!
Consider this just fair warning a few years ahead of its time - the Year
2000 will be here shortly and thousands of software packages don't yet
know it!
The problem is that those software packages can't tell the difference
between January 1, 1901 and January 1, 2001. To them 01/01/01 is January
1, 1901.
Will your RDBMS system fail you when you least expect it? It could! It's
certainly going to cost the U.S. Government a tidy sum and a lot of time
and frustration to repair the mistakes sold to it by billion dollar
companies that claimed *they* had the best solution. The following
announcement is an actual posting from the Commerce Business Daily -
consider it the first of many:
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CALENDAR YEAR 2000 SOFTWARE
Category: 70 General Purpose ADP Equipment Software, Supplies and
Support Equipment, incl Leasing - Potential Sources Sought
(PROCUREMENTS)
Date Posted: 1995-10-31
Contact: USDA, Office of Operations, Room 1547-South Building, 14th &
Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20250
Synopsis:
70 -- CALENDAR YEAR 2000 SOFTWARE POC Contact Point, Beverly Brown,
(202)720-8614 The United States Department of Agriculture, Office of
Information Resources Management, National Computer Center (NCC), is
seeking the following information for commercial, off-the-shelf software
in preparing for calendar year 2000; (1) availability; (2) field proven;
(3) functionality; (4) performance; and (5) price. NCC has an array of
500 + software packages and databases, including COBOL, COBOL II,
Fortran, IDMS, DB2, Oracle, SAS and System 2000 and thousands of
programs written in these languages/databases. NCC's hardware includes
IBM ES/9021 Model 820 CPUs running MVS/ESA 4.3, IBM 3990 DASD, and
IBM/STK 3480 magnetic cartridge subsystems. The NCC is looking for
utility software tool(s) that will assist the NCC and its customers in
preparing for calendar year 2000. Specific functionality desired: (1)
software which identifies and analyzes problems of source code,
databases, files, etc. related to the year 2000 date calculations; (2)
software that converts source code, files, programs, databases, etc.;
(3) software that has the capability of converting dates under all
standard access methods which operate under MVS/ESA 4.3.; and (4)
software that provides application testing tools (source code, files,
data bases, etc) relating to converting to the year 2000. NCC has
Mainwares Hour Glass 2000 installed on the mainframe CPU complex.
Written responses are to be directed to Sally S. Soule; Capacity and
Performance Management Staff; National Computer Center; P.O. Box 419205;
Kansas City, Missouri 64141-6205. Telephone inquiries will not be
accepted.
Responses should include one (1) copy of all documentation, both
marketing and technical, for utility software which addresses
functionality; a point of contact for seeking additional technical
information; a point of contact at a comparable installation where the
utility software is installed, maintained (a federal government
organization is preferred), and in operation; a brief summary of the
utility software's capability addressing the four (4) areas previously
identified; and pricing data for commercial and government organization.
This is a request for information and not a request for comment or
request for proposals. To be considered, responses must be received
within fifteen (15) days of the publication of this announ- cement. The
Government will not pay for any information submitted in response to
this request for information, and any information received will become
the property of the Government and will not be returned to the
submitter. No solicitation is available for this requirement. Parties
who reply will be placed upon a mailing list of interested parties
should the Government decide to proceed with a request for comment or a
request for proposals.
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Many multimillion dollar and billion dollar software companies added all
sorts of gizmos to their software -- but they forgot to look at the
calendar!!! Had the U.S. Government purchased their database management
software from *our* small business, they wouldn't be faced with this
problem now. Will you make the same mistake?
Our programmers created not only a phenomenal, easy to use and very fast
database management system - they also read their calendars!! SPCS
PrimaBase(R) - a working trial version of which may be downloaded from
our website - accomodates date values between January 1, 1901 and
December 31, 2099. That's basic ... but some larger companies would
rather sell you cludgy, difficult to operate software with lots of
gizmos rather than a clean, easy to use package that flies on a 386.
The Year 2000 is very close ... there are many websites devoted to the
potentially significant computer problems that will result when the new
milennia arrives. One of the best, IMHO, is Peter de Jaeger's website:
http://arganet.tenagra.com:80/year2000/believeme.html
Check it out. Learn the facts. And test your software. And if you need
to obtain a versatile, powerful, fast, easy to operate and affordable
RDBMS for windows that can tell the difference between January 1, 1901
and January 1, 2001, please drop by our website and download the working
trial version of SPCS PrimaBase(R). The trial version is network ready
for 1-4 concurrently operating nodes. Network versions supporting from
5-32 concurrently operating nodes are available.
Time is running out, so ...
Thank you for your time.
Best, Mac
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|SCANDINAVIAN PC SYSTEMS, INC "Not high tech, |
| Baton Rouge, La = 504-338-9580 not low tech, just |
| 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Central M-F the *right* tech!" (R)|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|SPCS, Inc. is a Vietnam-era veteran operated small business. Est. 1985|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|WWW: http://www.intersurf.com/~spcsinc/ | E-Mail: spcsinc at intersurf.com|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Snail mail to: SPCS, Inc., P.O. Box 3156, Baton Rouge LA 70821-3156 |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Publishers of: John C. Dvorak's PC Crash Course and Survival Guide(tm)|
| SPCS' PC Crash Course and Survival Guide (tm) for Windows |
|Computer-based writing aids: Readability(tm) Plus & Corporate Voice(tm)|
| SPCS PrimaBase(R) - Windows RDBMS uniquely offering barcode support! |
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NOTE: Demo disks on several of our products are available for download at our web site. If you attempt to get to our web site and are unable to access our pages, please let us know by return e-mail ASAP so that we may correct the problem. Thank you for your interest and assistance!
DISCLAIMER: If it's business related, heck yes you can believe it - I'm the president of the company! If it's not, consider it just my humble opinion.
