CORPORATE AMERICA RETOOLING FOR 21ST CENTURY.

Byline: David J. Morrow The New York Times

Millennium fever is spreading through popular culture, and corporate America has caught the bug.

Companies large and small figure that an event capable of inspiring apocalyptic novels, doomsday prophecies, $2,000 Jeroboams of wine, and plans for 24-hour blowouts in the world's 24 time zones to ring in the year 2000 has got to have some sort of commercial potential.

It's just a matter of finding the angle - and many are. Companies are scrambling to refocus ailing brands, roll out new products and overhaul corporate identities before 2000 arrives.

Consider some examples of this 21st-century tweaking:

Companies whose names carry the seeds of obsolescence - from 20th Century Fox to Gateway 2000 to 20th Century Draperies, a Manhattan company that makes television and set decorations - have debated whether to swap their dated monikers for ones with a more modern ring. The changeover, experts say, can cost anywhere from $25,000 to $1 million, depending on the size of the company.

Wanting to project a global image in the next century, companies - including Nortel, the Canadian telecommunications company, and Lucasfilm Ltd.'s Thx unit - have recently shed their old logos for ones adorned with robots or globes or loopy type that mimics the Internet's space-pioneer design.

Still other businesses are viewing the millennium change as a marketing moment that surpasses the Olympics and Super Bowl. Kodak, for example, has begun an initiative to cash in, with top executives meeting regularly to discuss strategies, including, possibly, the launch of several new products.

``The change of the century calls into question everything about a brand or company image,'' said Carl Gustin, senior vice president at Kodak. ``It's time to look at the company from head to foot. Then you have to ask what's working and what's not.''

And then there are the corporate campaigns that, seemingly arbitrarily, have seized onto the millennial divide as their organizing principle.

General Motors and Toys ``R'' Us have ``project 2000'' programs, each designed to retool retail outlets. So what if their purposes - GM plans to reduce the number of its dealerships by 18 percent, while Toys ``R'' Us is remodeling its 700 stores to make them more inviting to shoppers - have little to do with the arrival of a new epoch and everything to do with mundane corporate housekeeping? The number 2000 adds a nice millennialist glitter to the process.

Countless other companies are latching onto the magic number. Among the culprits: The Starbucks Corp. plans to increase the number of its coffee bars to 2,000 by the year 2000; the Gannett Co. has been reassessing its publications' news coverage in an enterprise dubbed News 2000; and Chrysler's Project 2000, launched four years ago, is expected to whittle away several of the auto maker's models.

``Pegging the new millennium to a product is just too good a marketing opportunity for some executives to pass up,'' said Simon Williams, president of the Sterling Group, a New York brand consultant. ``A lot of major marketing decisions are being focused on this mythical change of conditions, whether the CEO will admit to it or not.''

Some chief executives have little choice but to do a little tinkering. Companies that have 2000 or 20th Century in their names may feel compelled to make a change, lest they become dated overnight.

Believing that its 20th Century Fox studio's brand name is firmly entrenched, News Corp. has no plans to scrap the moniker. But Gateway 2000 might.

``We're looking at what to do about our company name very seriously,'' said Jim Taylor, senior vice president of global marketing for Gateway 2000. ``You can't make a decision like that lightly. Our old logo has a certain magic, and we want to make sure we don't lose that. We have until December 31, 1999, to make up our minds.''

Or maybe until Dec. 31, 2000. Technically, as England's Royal Greenwich Observatory was at pains to point out only last month, the third millennium arrives Jan. 1, 2001. The reason is that there was no year zero; every century begins with a 1. But most of the world's population, brushing aside the purists' objections, seems bent on celebrating the event a year early, giving promoters of millennium parties a chance to make money twice.

There should be plenty of revelers, especially among chief executives who have already changed their monikers. Twentieth Century Companies deftly used its merger with The Benham Group in 1995 to change its name to American Century.

``When 20th Century acquired Benham, we had to come up with a new company name,'' said Gunnar Hughes, a company spokesman for American Century. ``It was an ideal time to take care of two problems at once. We kept the name century in the title to give us the time reference and point out that we're still forward looking.''

Other companies are finding it difficult to part with tradition. 20th Century Draperies is not changing its name because the owner - Mariam Febus - is afraid her customers will not be able to recognize the new firm.