Hi, I have followed the "T3 Sues IBM To Break its Mainframe Monopoly" and seen how it has changed from commentary on that issue to a dissertation on the merits or otherwise of having ready access to z/OS and possible it's source as in the pre-MVS days.
For its worth my observation is that the issue is extremely complex because of the number of vested interests by the various parties. >From the 1960s through to the early 1980s ready access to the source code of MVS's predecessors was neither good for system availability nor the 'core' business as a whole. I worked for one organisation which went out of business principally because the operating system of the day had been so heavily modified to provide advanced functionality that the business could not adapt from a batch orientated model to a transaction processing one. That said it was a wonderful learning environment for individual technicians due to both the opportunity to affect change, and the likelihood of that change generating a problem requiring resolution. I have been lucky to have access to a z/OS system over the last 4 years and my personal learning has been significant across areas that had previously been barred. I doubt that many large organisations would contemplate the expense of providing such an environment even if it were provided at the same cost level as previous ADCD/FLEX combination were. They would incur additional costs in management effort to ensure that they were used in a disciplined way. (Remember the quote "Is that a real 10 minutes or a System Programmer's 10 minutes"). For those of us having spent a lifetime working with z/OS its demise would be a sad event, although I personally think that is a long way off. What may well be closer is a shift in emphasis away from z/OS, as a consolidated market, to a new role with the mainframe being utilised for other things, which may well be virtualisation with or without Linux. My perspective in mainframe terms is "The King is dead, long live the King", with apologies to all republicans. Kind regards - Terry Terry Sambrooks Director KMS-IT Limited 228 Abbeydale Road South Dore, Sheffield, S17 3LA, UK Tel: +44 (0)114 262 0933 WEB: www.legac-e.co.uk Company Reg: 3767263 at the above address All outgoing E-mail is scanned, but it remains the recipients responsibility to ensure their system is protected from spy-ware, trojans, viruses, and worms. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
