On Tue, 9 Jun 2020 21:53:51 +0000, Farley, Peter wrote: >You're probably correct about the academic mindset and IBM's failure to >successfully market to them that the mainframe CAN do all the "cool" things >they perceive as the latest-and-greatest-idea(s), and is actively "keeping up" >with the best of those ideas. > Yes, but JCL. JCL is to programming as Roman numerals are to arithmetic.
And EBCDIC. "Doesn't play well with others." >Add to that the opensoource mindset that software SHOULD BY RIGHT be "free" >and you have a tough market to break into (again) from a for-profit company >perspective. > >The 20th century "80% discount" that IBM offered to academic institutions >pre-consent-decree would today probably be laughed right out of the Bursar's >or Treasurer's office. 20% of too-much-already is a lot more than they pay >for the little hardware beasts and the nothing they pay for the software that >runs on them. > >It's a tough sell now. Would have been worlds easier if addressed >intelligently back then and continued into this century. > >It was an IBM chairman who declared o investors that "IBM will never be in a >low-margin business". They are getting what they asked for. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
