The Millenium bug is not alone

The Y2K date problem is not the only issue potentially affecting software applications.

The Y2K problem is a term used to describe the potential failure of information technology systems before, on or after January 1, 2000, but there are several more problems that will have an impact well into the next century.

These includes the date at which global positioning satellites (GPS) roll over, the dates at which commodities switch to the Euro, the dates at which UNIX and C libraries roll over, and some hazardous date patterns which have been used for non-date purposes in software applications

A conservative estimate claims that over the next 50 years at least 60,000,000 software applications will need modification because of various date issues. The total cost of repairing and modifying these applications could top $5 trillion dollars. There is a growing belief among some computing pundits that because the date problem with system hardware and software is so widespread, intangible and expensive, a new international standard for dates should be developed to ease the problem.