Just to echo the previous responses, Gartner has some data on staffing levels, and you may wish to check with them. To summarize, they see much the same thing: for mainframes there's a (more or less) fixed operational staffing level and then zero (or very near it) operational staffing as you add workload. That is probably unique in computing and keeps getting more important as general service sector wages and benefits increase relative to materials and goods, and as IT activities become a larger share of total business activities. (That's a long-term, secular, global cost trend, although different countries are at different points on that trend.)
Also, there have been impressive operational productivity improvements over the past several years owing to many factors, including increased automation. Those productivity improvements seem to be fully compensating for the capacity increases -- maybe even more than fully. Anyway, that's my summary. Your situation may be different. - - - - - Timothy Sipples IBM Consulting Enterprise Software Architect Based in Tokyo, Serving IBM Japan / Asia-Pacific E-Mail: [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
