• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • The Blogosphere Says the IRS Uses the iSeries to Manage Bill Gates’ Personal Taxes

    July 31, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

    Maybe they should have renamed the box the IRSeries? While I was searching for something on the Internet, I accidentally ran across a posting in a news blog portion of a site with the unlikely name of Suicide Girls that had a blogger who claimed that the Internal Revenue Service is using an iSeries server to keep track of Microsoft chairman and founder Bill Gates’ tax returns.

    The Suicide Girls site is very weird, and I would not suggest that you click on the link below and especially not the site’s home page, while at work. If you want to see the Suicide Girls’ blog and this iSeries-related story, then click here.

    You will remember, of course, that Bill Gates claimed earlier this year when he was at an event in Portugal that the IRS has a dedicated computer system to manage his tax returns, which have a few more zeros in them than yours and mine do. At the time, Forbes magazine reported what Gates said as: “Their normal computers can’t deal with the numbers. So I am constantly getting these notices telling me I haven’t paid something, when really it is just on the wrong computer.”

    The only reason I bring this up, of course, is that I found it odd that someone out there in the blogosphere seems to believe that the iSeries is the very computer that Gates was talking about. (The blogger had the handle Adroitbeing and claimed to be from the Cook Islands). This is what she had to say: “This is actually funnier than one might think. Largely the IRS rely on AS/400 and iSeries (now called System i5) boxes running multiple operating systems–RPG, OS/400, COBOL, and AIX. Not surprisingly, in other news, Microsoft has undertaken marketing and sales efforts to encourage users of AS/400 iSeries to migrate to Windows Server. Perhaps this is Bill’s personal sales effort.”

    Well, that sounds pretty informed, right down to the name changes. But there is no way of knowing for sure. The IRS doesn’t talk about its computer systems much, after decades of failed modernization attempts, but according to this document detailing a recent security audit on the IRS systems, which was not very flattering, the agency is using a mix of mainframe, Unix, and Windows machines. The IRS has confirmed that the crashing machine Gates referred to was not a Windows box, but did not say what kind it was.

    The other reason I decided to mention this tiny item on the Suicide Girls site was that the fact that such a posting exists on a vaguely pornographic site shows the downside of the “viral marketing” techniques that some IBMers want to use to push the OS/400 platform. I think it is better to focus on price/performance of the OS/400 platform and less on the side-show circus performance out there on the Internet. Having said that, I have a feeling that more people saw the iSeries name on the Suicide Girls site than they did in the Wall Street Journal.

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags: Tags: mtfh_rc, Volume 15, Number 30 -- July 31, 2006

    Sponsored by
    LaserVault

    Integrate Virtual Tape For Better Backups, Faster Recovery, And More Flexibility

    Virtual tape and virtual tape libraries offer a way to both simplify and strengthen backup and recovery operations. By incorporating virtual tape technology, automation of backups becomes possible resulting in hundreds of hours saved annually for IT departments and personnel.

    LaserVault ViTL is a virtual tape and tape library solution developed specifically for use with IBM Power Systems (from AS/400 to iSeries to Power 9s). See a demo and get a $50 gift card.

    With ViTL you can:

    • Replace physical tape and tape libraries and associated delays
    • Automate backup operations, including the ability to purge or archive backups
    • Remotely manage your backups – no need to be onsite with your server
    • Save backups to a dedupe appliance and the cloud
    • Recover your data at lightspeed greatly improving your ability to recover from cyberattacks
    • And so much more

    “The ViTL tapeless solution has truly made my job easier. It has given me more confidence in our full system recovery ability – but at the same time I hope it is never needed.” IBM i Administrator at a financial services company

    Sign-up now to see a ViTL online demo and get a $50 Amazon e-gift card when the demo is complete as our way of saying thanks for your time. Plus when you sign-up you’ll receive a free facts comparison sheet on using virtual tape vs tape so you can compare the functionality for yourself.

    LaserVault.com

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Admin Alert: Automatic Ways to Assign Group Authorities to an Object Print PC Documents to iSeries Printers

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

TFH Volume: 15 Issue: 30

This Issue Sponsored By

    Table of Contents

    • Agilysys Blames Fiscal Q1 Sales Weakness on IBM ‘Proprietary Servers’
    • Everybody Loves SOA, Aberdeen Survey Says
    • Bang for the Buck: Baby i5 Servers Versus Windows and Linux Boxes
    • IT Shops Expect iSCSI and Fibre Channel to Co-Exist
    • IBM Creates a Performance-Based Pricing Scheme for Software
    • Lawson Reports Preliminary Q4 Results, Loses CFO, and Buys CAS
    • New Vendors Join SOA Collaboration Group
    • Logility’s Sales Rocket Skyward in Fiscal Q4
    • As I See It: Productivity and Relationship
    • The Blogosphere Says the IRS Uses the iSeries to Manage Bill Gates’ Personal Taxes

    Content archive

    • The Four Hundred
    • Four Hundred Stuff
    • Four Hundred Guru

    Recent Posts

    • COMMON Set for First Annual Conference in Three Years
    • API Operations Management for Safe, Powerful, and High Performance APIs
    • What’s New in IBM i Services and Networking
    • Four Hundred Monitor, May 18
    • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 20
    • IBM i 7.3 TR12: The Non-TR Tech Refresh
    • IBM i Integration Elevates Operational Query and Analytics
    • Simplified IBM i Stack Bundling Ahead Of Subscription Pricing
    • More Price Hikes From IBM, Now For High End Storage
    • Big Blue Readies Power10 And IBM i 7.5 Training for Partners

    Subscribe

    To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

    Pages

    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Contributors
    • Four Hundred Monitor
    • IBM i PTF Guide
    • Media Kit
    • Subscribe

    Search

    Copyright © 2022 IT Jungle

    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.