Is Mainframe overlooked in your organization because it's NOT a problem? Are you overlooked?  World renowned speaker Randall Munson shows you how to represent in, "It's Not a Dinosaur: Promoting the Mainframe Within Your Organization." Register FREE at ca.com/mmm

I am NOT a Marketer! I am a Mainframer!!

Well, as it happens, I am a Marketer AND a Mainframer.  And in the past years, I have spoken and presented to many people about the problem of the "Invisible Mainframe" and what they should/could do about it. And a lot of this has to do with internal PR. But I have also seen in many organizations that the Mainframe suffers from the problem that it's not visible enough... In certain places... Especially in places where invoices are approved.  So often, from the procurement people or the CIO's I hear that the "Expensive Mainframe" is something he/she "is working on"... because surely, whatever runs on that Mainframe can run on cheaper boxes!!!

This Mainframe myth is probably as hard to kill as the myth that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But it's just as wrong! To solve a problem, it's very important to realize how it this myth started in the first place. In the beginning, many analysts started writing about how powerful Intel based computers were and how cheap they could run an application.

This soon lead to them saying that it was 10 times cheaper to run the same application on a distributed system than it was running it on a Mainframe. One thing lead to another and before we realized it, people "knew" that a Mainframe was expensive, slow, old fashioned and it would soon be replaced by a few dozen servers. Giving us flexibility, better responsiveness and very sexy applications.

But how many of us ever went back and said: "Hey, we are 5 years up the road now, am I really running things cheaper than before?" IT People often don't like to look back. Ok, so maybe we did need not a few dozen, but a few thousand servers. And due to the complexity, this quick VB program that delivered us the sexy application in two months, soon changed into an application that took weeks/months to implement important changes.

And in the meantime, Mainframers did what they do best. Keep a system running, and moan about "these guys who were reinventing the wheel again and again, we did THAT 20 years ago already!!!" Admit it, we ALL did/do it. But the time has come to stand up and DO something. Show value. Ignore people who think they simply know better just because they are "distributed".. Forget the clan-wars.. Your company is fighting to stay competitive and only an efficient use of all IT components can deliver that. Mainframe as well as distributed. Can you become a Mainframe marketer? Maybe.

And for some really good lessons, register for CA's May Mainframe Madness (www.ca.com/mainframe/may) and listen to Randall Munson for some solid advice.. I know that even I can still learn something...