2009 is almost over, just another few hours to go, and with it not only ends the year, but also the decade. Today also marks the ten year anniversary that IT sceptics and scaremongers alike predicted that the Millennium Bug would disable our computer systems, shut down our hospitals and generally cause mayhem to anything electrical throughout the world.
They believed that the switching of computer calendars to a new millennium would cause untold havoc, and that companies such as Microsoft hadn’t accounted for it in their software and operating systems.
As it transpired, the year 1999 rolled over into 2000 without incident and the whole Millennium Bug thing was forgotten about. What was also forgotten about was the number of bogus IT firms who charged handsomely for their Millennium Bug health check services, ensuring that your computer systems were, now what was the phrase again? …Y2K Compliant.
This type of fear and hysteria cost businesses a lot of money and allowed scam artists to take advantage of the panic.
Thankfully, as another decade passes we have become much savvier when it comes to IT systems and no one would fall for a scare tactic like that again… would they?
Have a happy, and uneventful from a computer systems point of view, New Year.
