Indeed I did refer to the past, specifically the 1980's and 1990's, as mentioned in one of my later replies.
It is my faded-memory impression that it was, as Timothy pointed out, DEC's aggressive push of very low-cost and free "stuff" into universities that both permitted and accelerated the rise of *ix and also contributed to the decline of IBM mainframes on campus (though that was not the only reason). Some other mini-computer vendors had similar "push" efforts, but DEC was the 800-pound gorilla of the group. As others have pointed out, the unbundling and pricing restrictions placed on IBM may have contributed to IBM's loss of university market-share but they also never pursued keeping university mind-share, and so the mainframe products and ideologies were lost to the *ix world-view on campus. It's all water-under-the-bridge now, and I am happy that IBM's academic initiative seems to be making some progress. I just have the distinct impression that it is far too little, far too late. Peter -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tom Marchant Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 8:55 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: IBM commitment to academia On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:28:50 +0800, Timothy Sipples wrote: >Peter Farley writes: >>AFAIK, that is a (relatively) recent *new* initiative. > >About 10 years and counting, if my recollection is correct. We cannot >change the past, and the original assertion was not in the past tense. The original assertion was indeed in the past tense. You quoted it in your first reply to this thread: >>>Peter Farley writes: >>>>When ... IBM stopped supporting computer science in >>>>universities with free or low-cost hardware and software... When I read that, I thought that Peter meant around 30-40 years ago. -- 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 [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
