Pick introduces Y2K Solution Certification: Year 2000 Okay

Pick Systems is providing users with additional reassurance through its Year 2000 self-certification program - called Year 2000 Okay. Once VARs have verified that their products are Year 2000 compliant they will be able to publish their names on the Pick Systems website. Year 2000 Okay certified products comply with the internal date handling methods that complies with the British Standards Institution DIS PD -2000-1, a definition of year conformity requirements.

"Pick DBMS product users (D3, Advanced Pick, and R83) can therefore confidently continue doing business into the next century with the knowledge that their VARs participate in the "Year 2000: OK" program. Anyone shopping for a new application should look for the reassuring symbol: Pick Systems Year 2000 Okay," says Adrian Oxborrow, sales director Pick Systems Africa.

Thus, users of Pick-based applications will transit the millenium margin without the anxiety, errors, and expense that users of other computer systems suffer. Pick customers enjoy low impact solutions to the Year 2000 Problem.

World-wide concern is skyrocketing over the looming Year 200 Bug, but current and new users of the D3 DBMS know that they need not fear the massive disruption that loom over users of other computer systems. "Our Year 2000: OK campaign provides reassurance that our VAR`s applications meet international guidelines for Year 2000 compliance," continues Oxborrow.

Pick VARs can quickly replace faulty legacy systems with solid vertical market applications that work. In many cases the new program implementation will cost less than repairs. Most important, the new applications are free of unknown ` time bombs` that may be lurking in old code.

Pick`s reassuring two prolonged approach to exterminating the millenium bug incorporates its proven date processing methods as well as guidelines for sound date handling in application code.

Pick System is isolated from the common Year 2000 problem of two-digit year code that doesn`t sort properly or compute accurately over the century transition. It manages dates by storing them as simple numbers, processed for external representation according to the algorithm known as Zeller`s Congruence.

This mechanism saves programming effort and insulates software developers and users from problems arising from century boundary crossing. That`s why programmers are unanimous in their acceptance of Pick`s efficient, accurate internal date management.

The system provides a developer friendly mechanism to transform dates into numbers representing the numbers of days since December 31, 1967. Dates convert through easily employed processing codes in Flash/Basic and active data dictionaries. The resulting integers both are compact and easy to sort. The number of days between June 16, 1997, and July 2001, is simply the difference between their internal representing the (12236-10760 = 1476)

Additional motivation is provided by the many options in external format offered. The same data are formatted (for American or European date format, two or digit year, day of the week, among others) by a simple change of processing code. It`s no wonder that facility is universally accepted by application developers working in the Pick environment.