Now remember Flint, this is a world economy.

BANGALORE, India (August 2, 1999 8:20 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com)

- Up to 40 percent of Asian businesses may still be unprepared in December to tackle the computer millennium bug, market research firm International Data Corp (IDC) said Monday.

"About 35 to 40 percent of businesses in Asia are expected not to be Y2K ready by December," Dane Anderson, vice president for computing systems research, IDC (Asia/Pacific), told an industry meeting in Bangalore.

Anderson said firms would be considered non-compliant for Y2K in December if they were still at the stage of implementing and testing their solutions.

The Year 2000 (Y2K) problem, also called the millennium bug, could arise in computers that record dates using only the last two digits to denote a year. The problem is common in computers built at time when computer memory was expensive.

If left uncorrected, computer systems might read the year 2000 as 1900 or just shut down.

International Data Corporation is the information technology industry's most comprehensive resource on worldwide IT markets, trends, products, vendors, and geographies. IDC provides data, analysis, and advisory services to the world's leading IT suppliers as well as IS professionals in finance, insurance, entertainment, advertising, consumer goods, and publishing. IDC's research and opinions are based on the results of more than 300,000 end-user surveys, in-depth competitive analysis, broad technology coverage, and strategic analysis. IDC is committed to providing global research with local content through its 500 analysts in more than 40 countries worldwide. Additional information on IDC can be found on its Web site at http://www.idc.com.

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), August 02, 1999