Justin Eastman wrote:
I think you hit the nail on the head here Steve. I volunteer to help with
Universities in Arizona for the IBM Academic Initiative. 2 of the 3
Universities have been approached in Arizona and the heads of the CS
departments have stopped IBM in their tracks saying mainframes are not a
technology that they see any future for and scoff at the idea of adding
some curriculum to support them. These schools have been offered many
incentives, but the bottom line is they don't want it. They don't
understand the role mainframes play. On an upbeat note, one professor in
the 3rd school has just introduced mainframes as part of his OS class and
will be attempting to get an upper class z/OS introduction class into
their curriculum. IBM Academic Initiative is working with companies to
try to bring them to the Universities to speak to the CS departments to
convince them of the need for these skills. They are tired of hiring
senior level programmers to do entry level jobs. IBM is actively
soliciting Universities to try to introduce more curriculum. So hopefully
its moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, its an uphill climb at
this point.
If the interest is there to participate in convincing these Universities
by anyone, I can most likely get you in contact with IBM Academic
Initiative personel that are the reps in your area.
Justin Eastman
But you have to have a two-pronged approach. It's nice
to have the universities offer z/OS-related training,
but you (IBM) still need to win the hearts and minds
of young techies and managers back to the values of the
platform, or they will never select or sustain it.
We've discussed this to death: small to medium shops
either are getting off their mainframes or never going
there; large shops continue to enlarge their mainframe
capacity but are outsourcing their applications development
and maintenance. [And a number of large shops I know of
are looking to devise a long term strategy to get off
the mainframe.]
If you don't grow the z/OS base, it will die; and sooner
rather than later.
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
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