The abbreviation Y2K has dominated the vocabulary and budgets of corporate IT departments for so long now that many organizations may find it strange to start thinking beyond 2000.
But with the rollover date less than four months away, post-Y2K plans are now part of the immediate rather than long-term future. And, after years of having to reallocate finances and energies toward the year 2000 "bug," companies are finally getting their budgets and personnel back.

Analysts say there's plenty to keep IT departments busy. To begin with, 53% of large companies say Y2K forced them to reduce spending in other key areas, according to a recent study from International Data Corp. (IDC). Cutbacks hit hardest at applications development -- 69.6% of companies said they'd trimmed budgets for major applications and 53.7% had curtailed systems software projects. Some 67% cut spending on large to midrange servers and 64.7% on end-user hardware, while 51.9% reduced or postponed work on networks.