In an New York Times article of March 28 th , the words of Steward Alsop, who predicted that the last mainframe would be unplugged in 1996 were put in context. The mainframe was use as one example how “old” technology proved to be a strong survivor together with Radio, railways and the most modern one...

Alex asked for a discussion topic on this theme. His opening gambit is "I believe a topic that would raise interesting discussion is the change we have all seen over the past year or two of the non-stop reduction of "costs", seemingly regardless of the inevitable and disastrous impact...

A friend of mine in South Australia has asked if I could open up this topic. Gary is an IDMS guru (bless his heart) and I suspect is going to be a regular contributor to Bruce. Gary is interested in knowing how much interest there is around our community in Web Services (or SOA) on the Big Iron, who...

For the past few years, and over the next decade, we're hearing about the retirement of the Baby Boomers, and in the world of mainframes, the even more imminent retirement of the majority of the mainframe technical workforce. In both cases, right now it feels pretty theoretical - the impact has not...

Every so often, a performing artist comes along and takes the world by storm after years of obscurity. We often joke about such a person that they "took decades to become an overnight success." How does this happen? Personally, I think it's a combination of quality and maturity - kind of...

Call me an enthusiastic mainframe nerd. It’s time for me to admit it. After all, I’ve been working on mainframes for 20 years, and for the number one mainframe ISV for ten of those years. And, I expect the mainframe to be a significant part of the rest of my career – which, by the way, I plan to last...