CA, EDS offer free Y2K desktop software

Computer Associates International Inc. and Electronic Data Systems Corp. yesterday announced the availability of free software to help companies with year 2000 compliance.

CA also said it will release an unrelated application-management tool that can warn IT managers of a variety of problems with databases and applications.

The joint CA-EDS product, called AimIT Y2K Edition, uses CA software that can search networks and verify their year 2000 compliance by comparing them with an EDS database containing 250,000 computer-related items, Yogesh Gupta, CA senior vice president for product strategy, said in a telephone conference. The EDS inventory covers hardware and software on computers and the network, he said.

The tool is targeted at non-mission critical applications, Gupta said. "This is a solution that businesses haven't focused on," he said. "The focus has been on mission-critical applications, but not yet on the desktops."

Orders can be placed from CA's Web site at www.cai.com.

CA also announced the planned release of ManageIT, software that can detect database and application problems. ManageIT gathers and analyzes data and processes and identifies patterns and anomalies that could lead to deteriorating performance or failure, Gupta said.

The information then becomes available to database administrators or other technical staff, who can pinpoint the problems.

The product is in beta form and will be released commercially by the end of the year, Gupta said. Prices for the tool weren't released.