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Barnes and Noble Conducting Extra Y2K Due Diligence
Data Integrity IV&V Tool Checking for Lingering Y2K Bugs

Millennium CrossCheck Speeds Y2K Compliance; 
Unique Search Technique Finds Errors Missed During Earlier Remediation

Waltham, MA - April 7, 1999
Barnes & Noble, Inc., one of the world's largest booksellers, has contracted with Data Integrity, Inc. (dii), developer of breakthrough automated Year 2000 solutions, to implement Millennium CrossCheck™, the leading independent verification and validation (IV&V) Y2K tool.  Millennium CrossCheck will search Barnes & Noble's computer code to identify lingering Y2K bugs in code that has already undergone Y2K conversion.

"IV&V is essential for conducting true Y2K due diligence, and we believe Millennium CrossCheck is the best IV&V product on the market," said Joseph Giamelli, chief information officer, Barnes & Noble.  "The product is fast, easy to use and, most importantly, it uses a different search technique, so it picks up Y2K problems that were missed the first time around.  Barnes & Noble has the largest selection of book titles, and the smooth operation of our computer system is essential to the ongoing operation of the company."

Millennium CrossCheck leverages the proven, breakthrough Y2K search capability built into Data Integrity's Y2K software solutions used successfully at NationsBank, Credit Suisse First Boston, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Delta Technologies, major healthcare and insurance organizations and government agencies. Millennium CrossCheck evaluates computer code and accelerates Y2K testing.  It eliminates all "false negatives" before and during the test phase of Y2K conversion projects.

The contract was arranged by Integrated Solutions & Services, Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, a full computer consulting services IBM business partner and a business partner of Data Integrity.

Barnes & Noble has over 8 million book titles. In less than two years, it has become the fourth largest e-commerce site and among the top 25 overall sites on the Web, according to Media Metrix. The company maintains the largest standing inventory of any online bookseller, with more than 750,000 titles ready for immediate delivery. The site's database features more than 6.5 million out-of-print and rare books, as well as the largest online selection of bargain books discounted up to 90 percent. 

Millennium CrossCheck addresses the crucial need for more accurate identification of Y2K-sensitive code than is offered by conventional glossary, or pattern matching, search techniques incorporated in Y2K windowing tools. Glossary searching misses 5 to 20 percent of date-sensitive code, leading to extensive problems during Y2K testing. 
"We found that Millennium CrossCheck is highly effective in a third-party, complementary role because it is integrated without disruption into our ongoing project work already begun using other Y2K tools," said Giamelli.  "By looking at code in a different way, it's able to 'see' bugs that our other tools can't."

"Barnes & Noble is one of a growing number of organizations recognizing the crucial importance of conducting a final review of remediated and test code before giving it Year 2000 certification," said Allen G. Burgess, President of Data Integrity. "At customer sites, Millennium CrossCheck finds between one and 50 errors per 10,000 lines of remediated code. Extrapolated over 1 million lines of code, that's 100 to 5,000 additional Y2K errors missed during the original code renovation. Millennium CrossCheck has even found bugs in Y2K-certified systems."

Instead of the conventional Y2K search methods, which identify  programmer-defined date variables, Millennium CrossCheck examines legacy source code (Cobol, PL/1, Assembler, RPG for AS/400) for standard mathematical and logical operations that yield errors when the calendar moves from 1999 to 2000, and beyond. This unique analytical method eliminates false negatives because every math operation and logical compare is checked.

Millennium CrossCheck evaluates millions of lines of code in days. In field tests, one programmer on one PC used Millennium CrossCheck to validate 600,000 lines of code in eight hours. The tool runs on a variety of PC platforms and provides a simple, easy-to-learn user interface and procedures. Training is completed in four hours or less.  The product can be used either by in-house staff at the customer site, without consulting support, or in Data Integrity's Millennium Express factory with dii Y2K service consultants.

About Data Integrity
Data Integrity, Inc. (dii), Waltham, Mass., provides the most powerful Year 2000 remediation and independent validation & verification (IV&V) software on the market today.  Its patented Millennium Solution tool set represents a major departure from conventional Y2K approaches, delivering far more accurate diagnosis and less disruptive remediation of legacy system code.  According to Aberdeen Group, Boston, a leading industry analyst firm, “(Data Integrity’s) Millennium Solution tool set features superior accuracy, speed, and reduces testing time by making fewer changes to code.”  Data Integrity's installed base includes NationsBank, Credit Suisse First Boston, the U.S. Department of the Interior and other major organizations.

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