Ask Clients & Profits Sales:

Here's how Mark Robillard, Clients & Profits' founder and creative director, remembers it:

We knew about the Y2K issue well into the mid-1990s. From the start, all of the date fields in Clients & Profits were programmed to work through 2079. Our testing showed we had no problem with the Y2K changeover. Many of our competitors knew they were doomed, so some just gave up and closed down. We picked up dozens of new clients this way. Also, we gained dozens of new clients who had perfectly Y2K compatible accounting software, but used the changeover as a reason to start the new millineum fresh with Clients & Profits.

In the spring of 1999 we began publishing articles on our web site explaining our Y2K compatibility, but by the Fall clients were calling the Helpdesk just to make sure. Even though they read that C&P worked fine, they wanted to hear a reassuring voice tell them person-to-person. That December we took hundreds of calls about Y2K before the office closed for the Christmas holiday.

This memory still sticks in my mind: Me and my family were at a cabin in Lake Arrowhead, in the mountains east of Los Angeles. About 4 pm on New Year's Eve I got a worried call from a user in a total panic about how Clients & Profits will handle the Y2K changeover the next day.

At first the caller was furious that we'd close our office on 'such an important day'. I listened and patiently reassured her, then explained that our Y2K compatibility was fully documented on our web site. She replied that she'd seen that page but wanted to be sure everyone was ok.

I was curious how she'd tracked me down, so asked her. Now embarrassed about her panic, she explained that she'd called every ROBILLARD in the White Pagers in San Diego, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties until she'd found me. I couldn't help but laugh. She thanked me, then asked if I was going to hold this against her later when she called for help. Of course not, I replied.

I never heard from her again.