State finds computer salvation

Friday, March 14, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Marlene Lockard has found the "silver bullet."

Lockard, director of the state Department of Information Services, announced Thursday she has signed a $5 million contract with a California firm to solve the "year 2000" computer problem in state government.

Unless most computers are changed, they will crash at the turn of the century because they are not programmed to use the year 2000 or beyond. Welfare benefits, unemployment checks, driver's license renewals, terms of prison inmates, longevity pay and other things could be thrown into disarray.

The contract with MatriDigm of Fremont, Calif., will save the state $9 million, Lockard said.

In mid-1996, Lockard told state executives she was looking for a "silver bullet" that would save the state millions of dollars in making the conversion. Along came MatriDigm, which asked Nevada to serve as a guinea pig on its 2000 conversion program.

After months of experimenting and testing, Lockard said, the MatriDigm system does the job. Lockard said the cost per line of code to convert is confidential but far lower than the $1.65 estimate per line that the state faced last year.

MatriDigm gave the state a price break -- no one knows how much -- and Lockard said local governments will be able to cash in on the lower price if they sign up with the company for conversion.

MatriDigm's work will be done on the state's major computer. Some of the personal computers used by state agencies will be converted by Lockard's staff. Some agencies are buying new computers because their present ones are so old.

If the state had been forced to do the project manually, as first envisioned, it would have taken years. But Matridigm's system will enable a quicker conversion and the state should be ready to meet the changeover on Jan. 1, 2000, without computer problems.

About 30 percent of MatriDigm is owned by Zitel Corp., a publicly traded corporation whose stock is traded on Nasdaq. Since the disclosure that the state of Nevada was allowing MatriDigm to conduct tests on its computer, the stock of Zitel has risen from the mid teens to close to $50. It closed Wednesday at $30.