Compaq claims under scrutiny

Compaq faces a government inquiry after running adverts in which it claimed its computers are millennium bug compliant.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is investigating a complaint by year 2000 testing company Prove It 2000, which could lead to Compaq having to prove its compliance testing methods.

A Compaq advertisement run in national newspapers on 14 May claimed: 'Every computer in our range is guaranteed to pass the National Software Testing Laboratories YMARK2000 hardware test.'

But Richard Coppel, Prove It 2000 MD, said the advert was misleading and claimed the vendor's computers failed his company's own market-leading test. He insisted Compaq has dodged serious compliance with a public relations 'quick test' to sell computers as 'millennium bug proof'.

Other enraged testers have contacted compliance software tester Solace Consultancy to complain about the advert. Mark Gibson, MD of Solace, said it was preparing a report for bug fixers and corporates listing concerns about Compaq's claims.

He said the bug was over-hyped in the retail market but failure was a serious issue for Compaq's commercial customers.

Both Prove It 2000 and Solace find fault with Compaq because its US-based National Software Testing Laboratories YMARK2000 test fails to check the Real Time Clock which may affect software on the computer.

Compaq UK year 2000 manager Steve Torbe hit back and claimed the RTC issue was a 'red herring' and unimportant in any compliance test. The company's guarantee was only for new hardware and not the software used or the operating systems the software was run on. He said software that accessed the RTC rather than the Bios or operating system was 'bad' software.

But Coppel said commercial software, Windows NT and virus checkers accessed the RTC. 'It does not make sense unless Compaq is saying it is no longer in the business market - just in the retail market.'