----- Original Message -----
From: "Edward Jaffe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 12:54 PM
Subject: Re: IBM obsoleting mainframe hardware
My old pal Craddock, Chris wrote:
I can only add "what he said!!" There's a real schism in the market at
present and it takes a lot of effort to satisfy both ends of the
spectrum. Folks who are behind the curve are typically spending a lot
less money with IBM and their other vendors than those who are current.
In other words, the software vendors are not really being rewarded for
the effort in supporting back-level customers. At the same time, that
effort has a negative impact on their ability to deliver new function to
customers who are up to date. It may be an uncomfortable reality for
some, but vendors are not charities. Sooner or later they will all have
to make choices and it isn't hard to guess which direction they're going
to have to go in.
Hopelessly lagging customers rarely upgrade their software. But, they
continue to pay maintenance, which usually entitles them to do so. Many
ISV product developers have a difficult time convincing management to drop
support for those older environments even though they drastically hinder
current development. Typically, the guy (or gal) sitting behind the desk,
punches a few numbers into a calculator, looks up and says, "No".
Fortunately, this is one area in which IBM really "gets" it. Their
aggressive EOS schedules have been a real help in moving things along. (Of
course, this is exactly what Tom was complaining about.) By effectively
obsoleting ESA/390 -- z/OS 1.6 requires z/Architecture --
they have relieved their *own* developers of much of the compatibility
"pain" currently being suffered by ISVs.
I look forward to the day, hopefully just a few years from now, when we'll
be able to drop support for ESA/390 as well. Perhaps I'll celebrate by
opening that nice bottle of wine I've been saving. Or, maybe I'll just go
back into my office and write some code that uses FLOGR. Of course, I'll
have to dual-path the code since FLOGR isn't supported on z900/z800 and
z990/z890. Some things never change. ;-)
While I can depreciate the fact that Ed and Chris are inconvenienced as
software vendors from a support standpoint, most clients I deal with find
the 3-5 year depreciation cycle on IBM mainframes to be way too short. I
remember going to the IBM gripe, er, open discussion session at SHARE a few
years back where a number of government customers were concerned about IBM
shortening the life cycle of mainframe hardware. Most of them had a 1-2
year procurement process alone, which really put them behind the 8-ball by
the time a decision was made to purchase. That's one of the reasons that so
many government customers are not running the latest and greatest.
The IRS has also not caught up to this new depreciation cycle, so there are
tax ramifications to not being able to depreciate the new hardware in 3-5
years. For those of you who saw fit to trot out the tired "We replace PC's
every three years" shibboleth, puh-leeze!! IBM has always been first and
foremost about protecting the customer's investment, but they're getting
away from that on the hardware side Software not so much, because unlike
most PC software manufacturers, IBM doesn't feel the need to completely
rewrite the user interface (remember, no PC software upgrade is complete
unless the developers have completely rewritten the UI so that the users
have to be completely retrained).
Maybe we all just have to adjust to this new reality. All I can tell you is
that I ain't seeing it.
Regards,
Tom Conley
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