Commercial Off-the-Shelf Applications: An Overview of Y2K Compliance Issues

What are "Commercial Off-the-Shelf" application programs?
What's the difference between Y2K "compliant" & "non-compliant" applications?
How do vendors determine which of their applications are compliant or non-compliant?
What percentage of our application programs are likely to be non-compliant?

Related documents

Commercial Off-the-Shelf Applications: Finding & Resolving Y2K Problems
Y2K Compliance Status of Selected Off-the-Shelf Applications Used at UC Berkeley
Commercial Off-the-Shelf Applications: Resources for Identifying Y2K Compliance

Application programs are pieces of software which allow you to perform specific tasks, such as word processing, sending and receiving electronic mail, and analyzing statistical data. "Commercial Off-the-Shelf" application programs (or "COTS", as they are sometimes referred to) are intended to be used "as is," without being significantly modified or customized by programmers for a specific customer's needs. Obvious examples of commercial off-the-shelf applications are so-called "shrink-wrapped" software products like Microsoft Excel, WordPerfect, and Eudora Pro, which you might buy in a box from a software retailer or mail order dealer. In addition, the "commercial off-the-shelf" category is often extended to encompass software which is not, strictly speaking, "commercial" and which you may not find on store shelves. This type of software is often freely distributed through the Internet and other means, rather than being sold. Examples include the popular Web browsers Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator and the "Lite" version of Eudora, as well as public domain, "freeware," and "shareware" programs. What all these programs have in common is that they're designed to be used more-or-less "as is," without being extensively customized. Customized application programs represent a second, contrasting category of software. These are programs which have been written "from scratch" or else extensively modified to perform a customized set of tasks for a specific customer. Some campus departments are running such applications, which typically have been created by departmental programmers or outside consultants. Often, these programs were built using programming or scripting languages, database management systems, or client/server tools. For information about finding and resolving Y2k problems in customized applications, see Custom Applications: Finding & Resolving Y2K Problems

Application programs can typically be classified into in one of three "Y2K compliance" categories, ranging from "compliant" to "non-compliant":
Category	What This Means	Example
Compliant	Broadly speaking, a "Y2K compliant" application program will behave in the same way regardless of your computer's system date. It can accept and correctly handle a reasonable range of dates from (at least) the 1900s and 2000s. It may also have some uniform way of handling century-ambiguous dates with only two digit years, such as "05/13/29". Most application programs will be Y2K compliant "as is." Others may require that a "patch" or "update" be installed which will make the application compliant. Although there is no universally-accepted, formal definition of "Y2K compliance" - whether for application programs or other products - a definition which is frequently cited as a model is the British Standards Institution's DISC PD2000-1 A Definition of Year 2000 Conformity Requirements . However, as noted in How do vendors determine which of their applications are compliant or non-compliant? , below, vendors have typically used their own criteria and testing methods as a basis for asserting that their application programs are Y2K compliant.	Microsoft Corporation asserted (when we checked on March 15, 1999) in its Compliance Information Product Summary for Excel 97 (8.0) for Windows that this version of its spreadsheet application is "compliant." Microsoft notes that, in order for Excel 97 to be regarded as compliant, one must first install the "Office 97 SR2 Patch," which is downloadable at no cost from Microsoft's Web site. One important caveat: some fully "compliant" applications can nonetheless exhibit Y2K problems if you use them carelessly , such as using dates incorrectly or running custom macros or scripts with their own Y2K problems. Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows is an example of a Y2K compliant program that is susceptible to "usage issues." Excel 98 for the Macintosh is also subject to such problems, as are some other spreadsheet and database programs.
Compliant with 'minor issues'	Some application programs are "compliant with 'minor issues.'" (Vendors vary in their use of terms to describe this condition.) A program in this category may have one or more features which have unresolvable Y2K problems, but its core functionality is unaffected. Typically, these features are peripheral to the program, or their remaining Y2K issues may cause only minor inconveniences. You'll need to decide if these "minor issues" might present practical difficulties given the way that you use these programs.	Microsoft Corporation noted (when we checked on March 9, 1999) in its Compliance Information Product Summary for Word 6.xx for Windows that: All dates that are used in the Find File Advanced Search dialog time stamp tab are converted to 2-digit format. ... This means that the operational range of dates for Find File [Advanced Search] in Word 6.0x for Windows is 1901-2000. As a result, you won't be able to use this feature to search by date for Word documents that were created or modified in the year 2001 or later. Other than this minor limitation, Microsoft asserts that the Find File feature will work correctly and that Word 6.0x for Windows is otherwise Y2K compliant.
Non-compliant	Application programs which are non-compliant exhibit serious problems. These can include crashes, failures to correctly process dates internally, or the inability to accept some valid dates. In general, it is important that you resolve such serious problems by patching, upgrading, replacing, or retiring non-compliant applications.	Intuit Inc. noted (when we checked on May 6, 1999) in its Year 2000 Statement for QuickBooks and QuickBooks Pro, Version 4.0, for Macintosh that: Typing the date in any field [into either of these products] on or after 1/1/2000, results in a fatal system error. ... There is no workaround for this issue. ... Intuit will provide a free solution by the end of June 1999.
Some vendors have stated that they will not test some of their application programs for Y2K compliance. Typically these programs have been discontinued or are very old versions. We recommend that you regard these not-tested programs as non-compliant, unless you can take the time to extensively test them yourself.
It's also important to note that compliance status is not static. Many vendors have fairly frequently revised the compliance status of at least some their off-the-shelf applications over time. This typically occurs when new testing uncovers previously undiscovered problems, or when vendors issue new patches or updates to fix problems. For this reason, it's important that you periodically monitor the compliance status of your most critical applications.

Some vendors have published the broad criteria they have used when assigning their products to a Y2K compliance category: compliant, compliant with 'minor issues,' or non-compliant. A representative example is Microsoft's Year 2000 Test Criteria statement. Not all vendors have not chosen to do this, however. On the other hand, very few vendors have publicly disclosed how they have tested their products for Y2K problems. (It is possible that many software vendors' reticence to do so might stem from competitive issues or liability concerns.) Two exemplary exceptions: Maxum Development Corporation , and Dantz Development Corporation , a developer of backup software for Windows and the Mac OS, both have made their Y2K testing methods publicly available.

Generally, most application programs are Y2K compliant. In addition, the newer programs in widespread use on many UC Berkeley campus microcomputers and workstations are generally more likely to be compliant than older programs. In one high-level perspective of what you might expect to find when assessing your department's application programs for Y2K compliance, Infoliant Corp. stated in a March 15, 1999 Information Week article that "more than 67%" of the 30,000 hardware and software products in its database "are considered compliant." If hardware and lesser-used, older application programs were removed, we suspect the compliance percentage for recently-released, mass-market application programs might be much higher. Of potential comfort to campus departments which have many Macintosh computers, Jeff Tupper of Pedagoguery Software was quoted in a Y2K Tip Sheet article on the applelinks.com Web site as stating that 96% of the over 1,500 Macintosh applications in his company's database did not have "Y2K issues." This could be because the date and time routines in the Mac OS, which have been widely used by programmers of Macintosh applications, are themselves Y2K compliant.