Well, I finally did it: I've now been to every continent where there are mainframes (unless there's one in Antarctica that they haven't told me about - if so, please let me know)!
And what a great experience. As I've mentioned previously, wherever I travel in the world I find some of the same things true about mainframers: intelligent, hard-working, concerned, interesting people, and the folks I met in Brazil certainly upheld this expectation.
The occasion: Chris O'Malley (CA's Mainframe Business Unit Executive Vice President), Gary Hundemer (Vice President of Mainframe Technical Sales) and I had the opportunity and honor to present to audiences in Brazil about what we're doing on the mainframe.
We began in São Paulo with a presentation to an impressively large audience, complete with simultaneous translation into Portuguese. After an opening and introduction by the local team, Chris started out with our Mainframe 2.0 strategy, then I talked about the technical aspects of Mainframe 2.0, then Gary Hundemer talked about achieving maximum value from your mainframe ISV investments, and I finished up with a presentation on regulatory compliance and the mainframe.
The audience and the local CA team were great, and we had good discussions afterwards over lunch. Chris was also interviewed by the local press about what we're doing on the mainframe. Then we finished the day with a meeting with an important CA mainframe customer (of course, "important" is implicit in "CA mainframe customer"), and flew to Brasilia.
The audience in Brasilia was even larger - these are some of the best mainframe audiences I've seen - and even more interactive. We gave the same presentations, got some great response, and had some very good discussion over lunch. Then we met with another mainframe customer, and the following morning we met with one more before I flew to Rio de Janeiro to meet with two more CA mainframe customers and discussed Mainframe 2.0 and what it means.
What a lovely country, what great (and hospitable) people, what a great local CA team, and what a great place to be a mainframer!
I just keep getting more and more optimistic about where the mainframe is and where it's going, and while there was general agreement that organizations have to start getting a new generation of mainframers in place, there was also great interest in the things we're doing with Mainframe 2.0 to help that new generation get effective right away.
It is so cool to be working with the platform that truly keeps the most important organizations on earth running (managing over 70% of business critical data) and to keep meeting the great people that keep that platform running wherever I go.
Obrigado (thank you) Brasil!