[email protected] (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
> Gossip is that POSIX compliance was a marketing requirement.  Beyond
> that, it's questionable how competitively strategic IBM regards Unix
> System Services.

I've mentioned before in the late 80s, senior disk engineer opening talk
at annual, world-wide communication group conference with statement that
the communication group was going to be responsible for demise of disk
division ... communication group had corporate strategic "ownership" of
everything crossing datacenter wall, protecting their dumb terminal
paradigm and install base, fiercely fighting off client/server and
distributed computing. disk division was seeing fall in mainframe disk
sales with data fleeing to more distributed computing friendly
platforms. the disk division had come up with number of solutions
... which were being constantly vetoed by the communication group. This
was also factor leading up to IBM going into the red a couple years
later ... and the subsequent re-organization into the 13 "baby blues" in
preparation for breaking up the company (which was reversed when the
board brought in Guerstner).

we knew his senior vp and would get asked to help in work-arounds to the
communication group ... one of which was the original POSIX support in
MVS. There is separate claim about gov. bids requiring POSIXs. other
activity was putting investments into other companies as part of those
companies turning out distributed computing solutions for mainframe (and
we were asked to periodically come in to those companies to assist with
their activity).

we did point out that main motivation behind POSIX was so that customers
could more easily migrate to the lowest cost platform (disk division was
looking to ease port of many of these applications to the mainframe
... which was one of the highest cost platforms).

recent posts mentioning "demise of disk divsion" talk
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#75 mainframe "selling" points
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#32 Ethernet at 40: Its daddy reveals its 
turbulent youth
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#57 Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article 
for the boss
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#75 Still not convinced about the 
superiority of mainframe security vs distributed?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#76 IBM Spent A Million Dollars 
Renovating And Staffing Its Former CEO's Office
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#17 The Big, Bad Bit Stuffers of IBM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#57 The cloud is killing traditional 
hardware and software
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#58 The cloud is killing traditional 
hardware and software
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#70 How internet can evolve
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#17 Tech Time Warp of the Week: The 
50-Pound Portable PC, 1977
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#34 What Makes code storage management so 
cool?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#10 The cloud is killing traditional 
hardware and software
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#2 IBM commitment to academia
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#17 Should we, as an industry, STOP using 
the word Mainframe and find (and start using) something more up-to-date
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#44 Teletypewriter Model 33
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#49 The Original IBM Basic Beliefs for 
those that have never seen them
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#5 Voyager 1 just left the solar system 
using less computing powerthan your iP

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

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