It seems like people associated with the traditional IBM world just can't get it when it comes to a very simple point- if it costs someone nearly $20K to have the privilege of doing development on a platform, there is a limited potential future.
People can get hold of an Intel box today and bring up a reasonable development environment for peanuts. This is impossible with mainframes. IBM has never demonstrated any commitment of any kind to develop a reasonable entry level approach to the mainframe that would capture the interest of many people. I can't buy an ATX motherboard form factor mainframe. Heck, I can't even buy a new mainframe that will just run on 110V power. Until IBM realizes that it needs an entry level box with reasonable software prices that most people understand, growth will be at a snail's pace in the mainframe space for the foreseeable future. The computer science mafia at the universities will continue to make idiotic and foolish anti-mainframe remarks, and yet another generation of students will be completely clueless about the mainframe world.
