With the intent of possibly saving the nation a lot of money, Congress decided in 2005 that they would extend the period of daylight savings by three weeks in the spring and another week in the autumn. The change may seem quite trivial in nature and plenty of notice seems to have been given, but for many large scale businesses the change may cause some frustration.

While the average computer user may not notice much of a problem, the early rollback might seem very reminiscent of the whole Y2K scare to many IT professionals across the country. Even though the implications of this “March Madness” are far less than those of the Year 2000 bug, there is still the possibility that mission critical IT systems might fumble, or even drop, the ball.

Many corporations have complex IT networks which consist of a wide range of equipment and operating systems, both new and old. Most of the equipment purchased after the congressional announcement should have no problem with the switch, as the developers should have already programmed the change into the systems. Unfortunately, there are still plenty of systems and software packages in use whose origins predate the announcement. Certainly, the systems that have wide userbases, like Windows 2000 and XP, will be supplied with automatic, hassle-free updates from their manufacturers, but not all software in use today enjoys that luxury.

There are plenty of companies that use software packages that many in the tech-world would consider ancient. A lot of this software, which could very well suite the needs of the client perfectly, might not be supported by the developers anymore. Similarly, there are plenty of companies that user custom written operating systems and software packages that only they use and know how to operate. In essence, this means that hordes of IT professionals will have to divert themselves from their regular tasks to tend to what should be a very trivial transition.

A lot of gadgetry, like certain smart phones, will not automatically update themselves, and the task of manually setting these and other devices to the correct time will probably fall on the IT departments of various businesses. Resetting certain systems isn’t always as simple as applying a supplied patch, due to all of the compatibility concerns that might arise. Take Microsoft Exchange, for example: Microsoft has pushed out patches for Outlook and Entourage mail clients, as well as for Windows and Exchange servers, but all of these patches need to be applied in a very specific order, and within a certain, rather narrow timeslot to avoid any potential screw-ups.

Even if a Windows machine receives the update in time, all might not be well. That little clock in the bottom right of the desktop may read the correct time, but it’s possible that users might still receive appointment notifications an hour late because the corporate server didn’t update correctly, or because the internal application clock in packages like Lotus Notes may not have updated at all.

The range of possible problems is practically endless. The early transition might not only mess with your thermostat or doctor’s appointment, but it can also wreak havoc for other time-sensitive operations: arrival and departure times in the transportation industry might be off; payments might be late because of delayed transactions; automated stock market sales and purchases might occur at inopportune times. These are only a few of the possible problems.

As noted before, the last transition that caused some trouble was Y2K, which cost the global economy an estimated $21 billion. The early day light savings transition is undeniably no where near the scale of the Y2K debacle, but the potential of lost revenue is definitely there. If a particular system were to take a drastic hit, it’s not out of the question that some companies may face slight revenue losses for a day or two.

If this day light savings transition is to be anything like the Y2K issue, then a lot of businesses and professionals will probably wake up the next morning to find that they were really making a lot of fuss about nothing, and that everything worked out as it should have. One transition down, one more to go…