NEWSWire/400 05.07.97

I have NEVER seen a 100% Guarantee like this to 
"identify 100% of the places you need to look at" 
and endorsed by IBM staff too.

Are you sure?
It does not say that either Web Site.
Delivery  apeared to be  different  -  later in 97 

This guarantee could imply many false positives in order to achieve such
notification levels.  That is not good either!

************************* NEWSWire/400 *************************
Issue 34                                             May 7, 1997

THIS WEEK:
 IBM Introduces Bypass2000, Shipping this Month

IBM INTRODUCES BYPASS2000, SHIPPING THIS MONTH
IBM's new Year 2000 conversion tool is not sexy -- not even 
pretty by a long shot -- but it will get the job done,  IBM says. 
The new tool is Bypass2000, a green- screen application running 
on the AS/400. It was designed and developed by Hal Informatica, 
a small software firm in Milan, Italy. Up until last October, IBM 
hadn't planned to offer or support an AS/400 tool of its own. IBM 
expected to fill more of a facilitator's role by hooking up 
customers with third-party Y2K vendors and assisting with 
education. "But we got so many requests for an IBM tool that we 
began a mad search last fall," explains Susan Gantner, AS/400 
application development segment manager. "We found that 
Bypass2000's propagation was thorough, complete, and deep, and 
that's why we chose it."

Like most other tools on the market, Bypass2000 can find and 
change about 90 percent of your dates automatically, with 10 
percent likely to require manual changes depending on the coding 
techniques a shop uses. But according to IBM, Bypass2000 won't 
let any affected dates slip by without notification first. "Hal 
tells us it will guarantee to identify 100 percent of the places 
you need to look at," Paris says. "To my knowledge, it is at the 
moment the only tool that will even begin to claim that." The 
tool runs on any AS/400 with V3R1 or later of OS/400 and 
currently migrates applications written in RPG, with Cobol 
support scheduled for  Version 1.2 release on September 26. 
Version 1.1 will ship from IBM  May 23. Gantner says Bypass2000 
is based on an underlying "application understanding" technology 
that is different from most Y2K tools in that it wasn't 
originally designed to look for dates -- it was first designed to 
trace relationships between fields within a program to help 
translate the program to another language. It wasn't until 1995 
that Hal realized the technology's potential as a Y2K conversion 
tool.

The Bypass2000 conversion process consists of three major batch 
processes: analysis, propagation, and conversion. Basically, the 
tool builds a storage map of all data used or defined in a 
program and then tracks its movement from one program to another. 
The user then identifies all date fields in database files, and 
Bypass tracks those date movements. (If you don't identify some 
date fields, it may not track that field's movement, which is a 
potential drawback, some industry analysts say. IBM and Hal, on 
the other hand, say the fact that Bypass2000 only requires 
knowledge of database fields reduces the overall identification 
process.) "Bypass2000 has the ability to track a date moving from 
one program to another even though you haven't actually 
identified any files or dates in the second program," explains 
Jon Paris, AS/400 application development segment manager. "Its 
job then, is to go through and find every impacted field in every 
program, every time." In the last step of the process, Bypass2000 
converts DDS source code as well as program source code to handle 
the new expanded dates. Converted program source can also include 
calls to utility programs, or subroutines, that perform a "date 
windowing" function that lets two-digit years remain on screens 
and reports. 

One drawback is that the tool does not support RPG IV, but IBM 
and Hal plan to provide support in a future release; they haven't 
yet specified a delivery date. Rochester also plans to offer 
attractive financing and purchase options on various AS/400 
models used for Y2K conversions -- we'll keep you posted as more 
information becomes available. 
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