And maybe the third dumb thing they did was give DOS to Gates and trash
OS/2
Doug Fuerst
d...@bkassociates.net
------ Original Message ------
From: "Farley, Peter x23353" <peter.far...@broadridge.com>
To: IBM-MAIN@listserv.ua.edu
Sent: 09-Jun-20 12:25:16
Subject: Re: "Everyone wants to retire mainframes"
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.
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