IBM mainframe crash means 'staff training'

Council workers in Wilkes Barre, Canada, are having to key-in lost tax data after their IBM mainframe system crashed last week.

The work would have been unnecessary if the council finance officers had actually paid a little extra for a service agreement when they bought the system.

Employees are having to type more than 25,000 names, addresses and tax data into the PCs.

It has been estimated that since the employees can only do about 200 items per day, it will take the council nearly six months to recover from the crash.

If the council had signed up for a service agreement, IBM would have helped them recover all the lost data.

The authority is keeping quiet about its recovery plan, saying that the data input work is good training for its employees.