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Firm tackles reactor bugs
By Donald Blount
Denver Post Business Writer


August 7 - It wasn't enough for Accelr8 Technology Corp. to attack 
 year 2000 problems for companies in the continental United States 
 that use the familiar Roman alphabet.




Now, the Denver Y2K troubleshooter is taking on a far greater 
 challenge - fixing problems at nuclear reactors in the former Soviet 
 Union, where the technology can be archaic and the alphabet is 
 Cyrillic. And all on a timetable shortened by the U.S. bombings 
 in Kosovo. When the air strikes began in March, a Russian 
 official's plane turned around in midflight and headed back to Russia 
 instead of landing in Washington, D.C., where Y2K discussions 
 were scheduled.



Accelr8 was hired by the U.S. Department of Energy to provide year 
 2000 solutions to nuclear power plants in the former Soviet countries.



The department purchased Accelr8's product and gave it to those 
 nations as a goodwill gesture, company officials said.




Accelr8's software is designed to help the nuclear power plant 
 operators detect Y2K problems.



If there's a serious glitch, the reactors at the plants would shut 
 down, not melt down, according to Accelr8. But a shutdown could 
 leave many in the cold and dark during the dead of winter.



"Nothing was easy'



Accelr8's task was to ensure that wouldn't happen. And it was quite a task.



"There was nothing about this job that was easy,'' Thomas Geimer, 
 Accelr8 chief executive officer, said Friday.



There were several reasons for the difficulties: the computer codes 
 were archaic; many of the codes were written in the 33-letter 
 Cyrillic alphabet; and the former Soviet officials kept changing 
 their requirements while testing Accelr8's software.



"The biggest challenge was to overcome the language,'' Geimer said. 
 It took time and effort to give the company's software the 
 ability to read those characters.



Also, the plants' computer codes - software that operated the 
 reactors - were taken from various sources. And the codes weren't 
 shared prior to the testing.



"We basically on the fly had to prove to them that we could process 
 it,'' Geimer said.



That made for some long nights for staff in Denver, he said. "We'd 
 come in and have to process codes that had comments in Cyrillic.''



War delayed work



The company handled this in about 60 days. The work was put off while 
 the U.S. and Russia were at odds over the war in Kosovo.



"Prime Minister (Yevgeny) Primakov was on his way here to work out 
 details of the deal in March when the bombings began,'' Geimer 
 said. Primakov's plane returned to Russia.



And Accelr8's deal was put on hold until the bombings ended in early June.



"It was all an interesting paradox,'' Geimer said. This was a product 
 the U.S. government wanted to give away, and it was difficult 
 trying to deliver the gift.



For its work in the first phase, Accelr8 was paid $400,000.



Its package is now being used in the Ukraine, Russia and Lithuania.



A second phase to include other countries could happen in the next 
 few weeks, company officials said.



And it could perhaps open more markets to Accelr8. "We were selected 
 over many others to do the Y2K remediation,'' Geimer said. "That 
 shows our product is doing its job.''



Accelr8 stock is down by 56 percent this year, closing Friday at 
 $2.219, up 9.4 cents. 




Copyright 1999 The Denver Post. All rights reserved. This material 
 may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. 

[reformatted for readability cr]

-- Lisa (lisa@work.now), August 12, 1999