The first really dumb thing that IBM did was to STOP providing heavily discounted mainframe hardware and software to universities and colleges. The NYC public colleges (CUNY, City University of New York) used to offer courses in COBOL and VSAM and many other mainframe technologies in the 1970's and into the 1980's, as did prestigious universities like NYU, but by the time my son attended CUNY post-2000 there were none of these courses available any more. Everything in the CS area was x86 hardware and Linux OS based.
The second really dumb thing that IBM did was to stop caring and feeding smaller commercial businesses running various combinations of DOS / VSE / VM software on (then) less-expensive hardware, at least in the US. I think Europe still has a thriving or at least surviving VM/VSE community. Successful small businesses, while less profitable in the present can easily over time become larger businesses needing the IBM flagship OS and corresponding hardware. No small ecosystem growing into a larger ecosystem means the potentially profitable pipeline dries up. Just my personal opinions of course. Peter -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Tom Brennan Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2020 11:54 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: "Everyone wants to retire mainframes" When I bought my Yamaha piano in 1989, I heard a story that Yamaha had been supplying free pianos to universities for years. It was more than them just being nice, they knew that someone practicing every day on the school grand piano would likely go on to buy one, or be the decision maker for an orchestra, night club, or whatever. I always thought that was super smart of them. What I always thought was rather dumb, is that IBM doesn't do similar with educational use of all their software. And that's just copied bits ... no wood, metal, delivery, tuning, etc. On 6/9/2020 5:02 AM, Bob Bridges wrote: > A coworker just sent me this brief article. > > https://www.techrepublic.com/article/everyone-wants-to-retire-mainfram > es-but-74-of-modernization-efforts-fail/ > > I'm interested in two aspects of this: > > 1) The writer uses the word "modernization" quite a bit, and as far as I can > tell she uses it, without explanation, to mean "switching from mainframes to > more recently invented platforms". This is the old assumption we've talked > about recently. > > 2) There's a really surprising number in there: > > "...almost 100% of survey respondents plan to move legacy applications to the > cloud this year and the motivation to move is clear: > > - 60% strongly agree they will be left behind competitively if they > fail to modernize > - 33% say modernizing has allowed the company to be more reactive to > market changes > - 34% say legacy modernization has accelerated digital transformation > projects > > About three-quarters of leaders said they have started a modernization > program but failed to complete it...." > > Can that "almost 100%" claim be true? I confess that three out of my last > three clients are talking about eliminating the mainframe, but I supposed it > to be an anomaly. Maybe the survey used the word "modernize" and the author > ~assumed~ this must mean dropping the mainframe. > > The article also says "Mainframes are still critical to business operations > with 71% of the Fortune 500 depending on these machines, including 92 of the > world's 100 largest banks". Come on - she's telling us that almost ~all~ of > those companies intend to switch legacy applications to the cloud? I just > can't buy that. ~My~ bank had certainly better not be planning such a move. > --- This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
