Jim, 30+ years ago it was reasonably easy to be on top of all the announcements (although in all honesty 2-3 times I went to SHARE and found out about a TSO product of some sort. Yes it was easy despite that to keep up with products as the changes were not that lets say major in each release. IBM seemed to make incremental changes so nothing drastic was needed. We had an IBM account team that really did care and kept us well informed so we could order intelligently. We thanked them and made sure they got their quota plus at least 20 percent. For major announcements (example 3850) the VP was flown (at IBM's expense) to the place where the product was made and of course they had an order form made out. We usually got a really low serial number as a result. My memory is iffy here but I think we got #27 of the 3850 and we got a low number MP168. We were growing so fast disk wise that we ran out of space on the floor and we had to take over the floor downstairs to make room for the equipment.
Now days I do not see how anyone can keep up COBOL (as an example) keeps everyone jumping with 2 or 3 announcements per year. LE seemed to be at least 1 a year and these are medium to low products in complexity, IMO. MVS is a major item, IMO and there is probably no way you can keep up with the changes. Is this good/Bad? Probably both it really depends on your environment and the people you have working at the shop. --- On Sat, 11/29/08, Jim Marshall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Jim Marshall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: z/OS V1R10 & COBOL > To: [email protected] > Date: Saturday, November 29, 2008, 7:38 PM > >>Seems in this new 21st Century I get to monitor all > the Announcement > letters on my own and look out for Ole #1 (the new way). > > > >I, honestly, don't understand the question. > >Aren't we responsible for understanding the > requirements for each upgrade, > regardless of the product? > > > This is a fair question. I now believe I was pampered by my > previous IBM SE > who wanted to ensure I knew a new version or release of > something was > available so I would order it ASAP; those are always a bit > more expensive and > thus was seeing the revenue increased from my account. > > Back in the summer the person left after getting a great > offer ($$$) from > Microsoft. Microsoft formed a team with many ex-AMDAHL > techies and sales > types to target mainframes and conversions to Windows. Hey, > I told the > person to "go for it", learn exactly how it can > be done and if so, come back > and explain it to me. The person is still trying to grasp > it all. > > An interesting aspect of working for Microsoft, is all the > employees are > required to run the latest development version of Windows > on their laptops > and PC's (per top management). Have no fear, I am told > 6-8 crashes a day > can do wonders for convincing mainframe accounts this is > the system of > future. > > No one told me looking after the customer was now the > solemn job of each > installation. Guess the old way was so "20th > Century"; although it was indeed > a nice touch. > > jim > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
