I think you would be surprised how many sites are still running old hardware and software. Not counting the people still running ESA and OS/390 under VM on a z/800 or brand new z/9 or z/10. There are actually sites still running 4381's and MVS/XA. I converted two of them (MVS/XA and MVS/ESA) over to a z/9 and z/10 just last year and we have been contacted by sites still running 967x's and Multiprise systems that have yet to convert. We have a waiting list of people who want to convert, (although not super large, it is several months backlogged).
Sometimes it is a budget sort of thing (at least they feel it is), but in some cases it's fear that their code won't run on another platform or OS level. You would also be surprised how many are afraid that because they "know" that they don't have all of the code for their software (user code, vendor code, lost over the years), that they didn't even try to convert. In several cases over the past few years, it had actually been that the sites were frightened (hopefully inadvertently) by their own IBM reps away from converting. Normally it's very inexpensive to convert (the savings in hardware and software tend to be fairly high for them, especially considering the performance boost), but some consultants and vendors (IBM included) will tend to try to scare them into "thinking" it will cost a arm and a leg, and when it backfires because the site backs away from a large cost, the vendor (or consulting company), can never go back and say that they were wrong, so they just leave the client "thinking" that the cost is prohibitive. It's kind of funny (in a sad way), but we have had a few sites tell us that they didn't want us to convert them because it seems "too inexpensive",and they felt "something had to be missing". Sometimes you just can't explain to them that it doesn't take a "really long time" or won't cost a "HUGE amount of money" and it's difficult for them to accept that they were lied to originally because then you have the problem that they feel stupid, and instead of taking it out on the people who lied to them, they now focus the pain and anger on you, because you have shown them that they could have acted otherwise. It's a very touchy subject. Some of these places are quite large. It's always easy to laugh at them, but in a lot of cases, it's really a big concern that weighs on them heavily. I can normally show the sites how to get from "A" to "B" without the pain, but some of them still want to hang on to the old hardware/software and their reasons are not always valid, in fact, in most cases they aren't "logically" valid, but logic doesn't always come into play when the sites have been told by people they "trusted" that the world might end if they tried to convert. Until they are ready to go, I can only try to keep them moving forward, and it's really hard for some of them. They have been justifying their position so long that they sometimes don't even really remember why they have not converted. Brian ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
