Me, Myself and iSeries

VB: So, iSeries, how old are you exactly?
iSeries: Please, call me "I." I go way back, longer than you. You started in 1986...

VB: Uh, actually our first issue published in 1987 and...
iSeries: Yes, I know, but VARBusiness first appeared as a supplement to Computer Systems News in 1986. Please don't interrupt me while I'm processing.

Anyway, I have a couple decades of history under my belt. My ancestors come from a long line of midrange computers, from the first System/32 and then the rebranded AS/400. I pretty much dominate the accounting departments and data centers these days.

VB: Has Linux changed you much over the past few years?
iSeries: Oh, quite a bit really. Open-source software is part of the whole iSeries strategy,"i" stands for integrated,on heterogeneous, integrated environments. Linux is great for a server platform. Plus, Linus and I go way back. Geeks rule.

VB: Do you ever get mistaken for Deep Blue?
iSeries: Chess? Please. Deep Blue spends its time running around playing board games and trying to outwit Russian prodigies, like he's Bobby Fischer or something. If Deep Blue is so good, how come he only beat [chess world champion Gary Kasparov outright twice in six matches? There's a reason the term "human error" was invented. I'm not impressed. Try keeping up accounting books these days. You think that's easy? Let me tell you something. If you had Deep Blue running the books for some of these companies, you'd be in Deep S*#t. You'd have a chess machine up on the stand taking the Fifth with Ken Lay and those chuckleheads from WorldCom.

VB: You sound a little combative. Why all the bitterness?
iSeries: It's just that I'm one of the best-selling products in the history of this company with one of the most loyal followings in the industry, yet critics are still taking odds against me living out another year, like I'm a character on "The Sopranos." I resent that.

VB: It could be because your eServer counterparts get most of the headlines these days. Some even say that IBM favors pSeries and the mainframe over you. And then there's that rumor that zSeries was actually named after Bill Zeitler (senior vice president and group executive of IBM Server Group).
iSeries: Hogwash. Everyone knows where Bill's heart really is. After all, he worked on the AS/400 team from its inception in 1988. Bill knows what I'm capable of and what I bring to the table for IBM. Mainframes are great, and they're certainly not going anywhere, but distributed computing is where the market is going. Trust me.

VB: What about Unix? Any envy there?
iSeries: Not a bit. Unix is for sissies. OS/400 is a real he-man's operating system,something that can't be messed up by a few pimply teenagers hacking code in the middle of the night.

VB: Then what does keep you up at night?
iSeries: Heterophobia. It's disgusting. People don't realize the majority of businesses out there have heterogeneous environments. But there are a few opponents,and I won't mention names,that contend homogeneous is the better choice, that you should have one architecture, one uniform system, and that's it. Really, how realistic is that? Can't we all just get along?