A MAJOR initiative is under way to help East Lancashire businesses avoid 'Millennium meltdown'

Concern is mounting that many companies could hit chaos at the turn of the century because their computer systems will not be able to cope with the date change. Now Business Link East Lancashire is acting to help local firms tackle the issue and a major conference on the issue is being planned in June.

The Millennium problem has arisen because many computers and computerised systems and software only use a two digit system for dates. When the year changes to 2000 many computers will interpret the year as 00 and cause systems to crash. Business Link's information technology manager Martin Donaldson has been setting up contact with companies and organisations who are able to offer specialist advice to local firms.

Many small and medium sized enterprises - Business Link targets - are worried about the cost of upgrading systems. Further details on the conference will be announced shortly.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.