Equanet slams manufacturers over millennium compliancy

A reseller under pressure to provide millennium-compliant PCs has hit out at manufacturers maintaining all kit will fail the test.

Equanet managing director Jonathan Chapple told PC Dealer that clients demanded iron-clad assurances of year 2000 compliance. He said the reseller had contracts which demanded a level of compliance that was impossible to achieve with PCs straight from manufacturers.

Manufacturers rely on the free, US-based National Software Testing Laboratory (NSTL) bug test. Many machines pass this test but fail industry standard testers which check the compliance of the real-time clock, the ultimate time keeper of every PC.

Compaq has been particularly criticised over its millennium compliancy policy.

Chapple added: 'If they are using tests that say the real-time clock (in a PC) is not millennium compliant, they either accept that or they go and buy Apple.'

He said: 'I am under the impression that all PC manufacturers follow the same standard, so the entire industry is at fault here, not just Compaq.

It just happens to be the fall guys.'

Steve Torbe, Compaq year 2000 manager, confirmed Chapple's position.

'In some ways Equanet is absolutely right because any real-time clock holds only two date fields,' he said.

The compliance debate started with a challenge from fix company Prove It 2000 to Compaq over claims that its PCs were compliant according to the NSTL test.

John Melville Williams QC, said 'compliance' as a contractual term needed strict definition because it could be crucial to the issue of liability.