Guys, Tim and I each talk to dozens of companies every year. And I know that he and I and our colleagues see/hear the same thing over and over - "help us with this skills problem". Every time, *without fail*, that I mention the Academic Initiative zSeries Program (aka "zScholars"), my customers just fall over themselves to learn more about it. Companies WANT to hire young people who have zSeries skill - but they are few and far between. If you/we grow them, they will be very valuable.
This is a classic chicken/egg situation. If there aren't enough skills, companies will go elsewhere to find them. Without skills, we/you cannot put more stuff on the mainframe and/or maintain what's there, so there is a net movement away from the platform, and the skills become less of an issue. What Tim is suggesting is that you should act (with IBM's help, I might add) to introduce new blood to the platform. Encourage young people to join the mainframe support teams. Get your alma mater involved in the Academic Initiative. This is not just a "zSeries Software Architect Preservation Program". We both happen to also have skills in Java development, Linux, web application architecture, etc. to go along with our mainframe skills (after all, girls like guys with good skills... :-) ) But we both also are rabid zSeries/z9 evangelists and sincerely believe (as does the IBM Corporation) that this is a vital platform to the business success of those companies that run z (which happen to be the vast majority of the Fortune 500). Getting new mainframe-skilled staff is critical. Anyone who is truly interested in the vitality of the platform should be eager to do whatever they can to build interest and skills in college students and/or anyone new to I/T. An interesting story from search390: http://search390.techtarget.com/qna/0,,sid10_gci536224,00.html All I can say is: this is a lot more fun than working with (as a friend of mine refers to them) "gaming servers"... --- Bill Seubert zSeries Software I/T Architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
