Case study of a year 2000 platform testing initiative

This paper uses the results from the testing of over 2300 personal computers (PCs) in a multinational Fortune 500 company to examine the question of year 2000 hardware compliance and the actual number of machines that fall into the category of “not compliant”. The PCs tested cover a broad scope in terms of age and configuration. We perform a case study of the method and results, and present lessons learned for use in future initiatives of this type. We conclude that, contrary to popular predictions, the notions that the majority of PCs will have to be replaced or remediated through either upgrades to BIOS or commercially available software packages are not supported by the results of this study. Rather, we found that the vast majority of machines are hardware compliant and there is little need for replacement or remediation