> Had you been a little more exegetic, you could have noticed that the > statement was intended to say that IBM should make a license agreement with Hercules and create a "student version" of z/OS, then bundle that with the new zScholar program to reach those institutions unable to afford an actual mainframe.
Yes, I know exactly what you are saying - I think I've probably seen this suggestion dozens if not over a hundred times now. And as I said, if you took the time to understand it, such an arrangement would cost a significant amount of lawyer and executive time - you would probably find it impossible to believe how much - and there is a risk, albeit small, to their existing revenue base. Look at what happened with FLEX-ES. IBM never signed a inherited a deal with Fundamental - it inherited one with its commitments when it bought Sequent. It found itself in a cleft stick with huge inventories of x430s - perhaps a couple of hundred - and decided to market FLEX-ES on the x430 "Enabled for S/390". Despite agreements in place, licenses in place, mutual IP access agreements, everything done formally and everybody trusting everybody (almost) it took about a year to get the partial GOLC pricing mechanism in place within IBM. And that's an IBM team working within IBM to sell IBM products. I've still not seen any sign of anyone in the Hercules camp approaching IBM as it needs to be approached. > It's not uncommon for the Java, C++ and NET college courses to include a CD > in the text that provides a limited version of the target platform for students to gain hands-on instead of just theory. And yes it is a simple little agreement. I know. I have several. Not relevant in any way. > Pay attention, this is an example. How do you think Java became so popular > in the first place? It was a strategic masterstroke on Sun's part to make the language commonly available to the coding masses and was only a matter of time before the big guns decided to license the spec for their various platforms. Since then, a whole new middleware industry has grown up around "free" Java and is worth billions of dollars. IBM's foresight in enabling Java across all hardware platforms was very smart indeed. They spent a billion dollars a year for years to make it happen and now they are reaping the benefits. All products are launched with free offers. You can do that when you have no revenue stream. > The precedence for vast gain has already been set. IBM stands zero risk to > their installed base of z/OS customers ... You may not see a risk, but IBM's lawyers and executives will (not might) see it differently. There IS a risk whenever any legal arrangement is changed, and doing so is expensive. You have to show a benefit. > .. but stands to gain much more than their original goal of 20,000 new z/OS > pros. Sez you. Stand at the back of a Hercules presentation and cound the heads that still have hair on. The majority of people who want to run z/OS at home are old enough for free bus passes. Get a few universities to ask for thirty thousand copies for their students to use at home. > On an aside, the company IBM started out to be is not even close to what it > is now, so the longevity comparison is fundamentally flawed and irrelevant. No, it's precisely what I meant -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
