A SMALL Limerick software company received a major fillip yesterday, signing a multi million dollar worldwide deal with the US computer giant, Digital. Piercom 2000's main programme, which helps combat the "Millennium Bug" by trawling millions of lines of computer code in the way a spell checker treats text, will now be used by Digital staff and customers around the globe.
Digital said readiness of application software for the year 2000 transition was "the biggest single challenge facing any company with a major investment in information services". It would make extensive use of the Piercom 2000 programme for its own Year 2000 readiness program and for customers.
The US company said it had carried out a survey of more than 400 Year 2000 solutions, and that Piercom's productivity gains for customers were almost 25 per cent higher than any of its closest competitors.
Piercom's chief executive, Mr Shaun Boyle, said the agreement was "a breakthrough" and the culmination of an already strong working relationship with Digital. Using the Piercom 2000 programme at the Department of Social Welfare, Digital analysed and recommended changes to five million lines of code in a five week period, he added.
The company, which had 12 workers at the start of the year, will employ 50 by the autumn, Mr Boyle predicted.
The Year 2000 problem occurs where two digit date fields were used to conserve costly system memory in older systems. Some computers could interpret the year 2000 as 00 and produce inaccurate results. Internal date mechanisms in a great many embedded microchips could also malfunction.
The programme does not solve the problem, but systematically locates affected dates and recommends changes. It then converts the section of code and displays the results in a user friendly format.
