John: In my opinion, detection programs have value to the extent that they automate the process of ridding your PC of the Y2K demon.
Yes, these activities can be done manually. If they need to be done at all, that is. Some people's machines don't NEED to be Y2K'ized, as I think you'll agree. If all they are used for is word processing and email'ing, then so what if the machine is non-Y2K compliant?
Let's put that group aside for the time being. The rest of the PC world can benefit from a product and associated process that saves a human being some time.
Providing information is a useful function. Most products do that. But, information (data) in and of itself is not valuable. What the user does with the data, or better yet, what the product automatically does with the data, is where the value is. Read through some of my recent postings (evaluations) on other threads and you'll see what I'm talking about.
These products that have a database containing the Y2K vendor compliance status are a useful entity. However, it is imperative to keep in mind that those databases absolutely CANNOT be kept up to date. They are a good starting place for finding a lot of non-compliant (maybe?) applications and/or user files.
Will I pay for one? No. I don't need one. I only have a couple of applications on my PC that I consider critical to my daily, weekly, monthly, or annual processes. I know what those applications are, and I know the status of their Y2K compliance. I checked their websites. If some of the others fail, so what? If/when that happens, I'll either apply the upgrade (if it exists) or find another way to get done what needs to be done.
The majority of today's PC users don't even know what freebies were on the machine when they bought it. Whether those applications are Y2K compliant or not makes no difference. Providing somebody a list of 37 applications and their compliance status is enough to scare some of those non-PC literate folks out of their wits. Maybe it's better not to.
As is the case with many subjective decisions, to buy or not to buy a detector program depends on the needs of the individual.
Regards,
TED |
