In brief: Millennium bug provides boost to outsourcing firms

An IDC survey out this week claims that the Year 2000 problem has convinced even the most reluctant IT directors to make use of external services, and external service providers could feel the benefits well into the next millennium.

The research house polled 400 companies and found that 37 per cent of those outsourcing all or part of their millennium problem hadn't used external organisations before.

The companies most likely to turn to outsourcing for the first time were retail and manufacturing firms with revenues between $100m and $500m.