We have reviewed the software for which we are responsible, and have determined that we properly handle dates that span the millennium. We have also instituted a process by which our business partners can certify their applications as Year 2000 compliant.

There are many plausible reasons as to why the IT industry is facing a date problem with the coming of the next millennium. In the early days of the computer industry, storage space was at a premium and shortcuts were taken to conserve resources. Additionally, the industry had not been around long enough to see a problem such as this before.

The problem being faced is really quite simple to understand but may prove to be quite difficult to solve. First, stored dates may not contain century information and that would allow years to be confused as to which century they belong. Second, application programs may contain code that manipulates dates and must be modified to properly compare, sort, and perform other date-related tasks. Of course, these problems manifest themselves in many ways depending upon the complexity of a company's application and the amount of interfacing that is done with other companies.

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of companies using computer-based products to determine the Year 2000 compliance of their systems. Year 2000 guidelines provide a simple method for determining compliance. The British Standards Institute has identified the four critical elements to Year 2000 compliance.

THE DEFINITION

Year 2000 conformity shall mean that neither performance nor functionality is affected by dates prior to, during, and after the year 2000. Pick Systems certifies that our products conform to the above definition of Year 2000 conformity.

In particular:

Rule 1. No value for current date will cause any interruption in operation.

Rule 2. Date-based functionality must behave consistently for dates prior to, during and after year 2000.

Rule 3. In all interfaces and data storage, the century in any date must be specified either explicitly or by unambiguous algorithms or inferencing rules.

Rule 4. Year 2000 must be recognized as a leap year.

Pick Systems' products are designed, implemented, tested, sold, delivered and supported as enabling technologies on which to develop applications. Third party companies that we identify as Value Added Resellers, or VARs, develop these applications. Our VARs match their applications to the requirements of a customer and together they install the application, use VAR consulting services, etc. to provide a solution to the customers business needs.

Pick Systems provides a special way of handling dates within the products we sell. A date entered into the system is converted by our date input conversion routine into an integer. We utilize a base date of December 31, 1967 as day zero. All dates occurring before the base date are stored as negative integers; dates afterwards are stored as positive integers.

Storing the date in this manner offers a multitude of advantages for the application developer including the ability to simply determine the difference between two dates and display the date in a variety of formats. Sorting of date fields is simple and straightforward. The ease at which dates can be manipulated using these handling routines is one of many reasons why the Pick Systems data model is selected as an application development platform. Most developers would not consider handling dates in any other way.

We have determined that our input and output conversion routines properly handle dates well beyond the year 2000. All applications which take advantage of these date handling routines will also handle dates properly through the year 2000 and beyond.

Pick Systems has also instituted a self-certifying program to assist customers in determining the compliance of their application solution. Pick Systems provides a platform that will properly handle dates beyond the year 2000. Of course there are many aspects of the Year 2000 problem that are not addressed by the database management system, such as how dates are displayed or whether incoming data is compliant. These aspects need to be addressed by the application developer and user. Our VARs certify that their applications properly address these other issues. Once we receive signed certification, we post the applications in a special place on our web site to highlight the VARs and applications for customers and prospects to review.

In summary, dates stored within the Pick data model have always been able to span the millennium. Applications developed using the Pick supplied date handling functions available are, in most cases, able to be certified as Year 2000 compliant. We urge our customers and their clients to take the time to review the Year 2000 problem and see what measures must be taken to successfully move their solutions into the next millennium. Fortunately for users of the Pick data model the time and effort to gain confidence in Year 2000 compliance is minimal, but don't wait, review now, put your mind at ease and enjoy the new millennium.