FW: Question about the future (of mainframes?)

[JohnRankin@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/13/2000 9:49:37 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
jsaker@pensat.com writes:

> John -- Are these things still alive out there? I thought they tore the last
>  ones out before Y2K! (kidding)
>  
>  Actually, I'd have to guess some of your customers are telecom companies
>  that use the systems for billing applications. One of the primary drivers
>  for us with reference to IPv6 has been the ability of our operational
>  support systems (OSS) to be able to interact, manage, mediate and track the
>  anticipated large base of IPv6 devices. 3G mobile devices (phones, pdas,
>  pagers, etc.), for example, will be difficult to manage at best without the
>  back-end OSS infrastructure to support it.
>  
>  Understanding how data intensive telecom mediation and billing can be, I'd
>  have to expect that some of your customers are in our category. If they're
>  not asking you for IPv6 support which will be mandatory for these OSS
>  systems, I'd be finding out why. I'd have to expect that the absence of any
>  interest is more a reflection of a replacement approach rather than
>  disinterest in the protocol.
>  
>  JRS
>  
>  James R. Saker Jr.

    This is a very interesting point.  The segment of the industry that we 
service is the classic big iron traditional mainframe site.  In general there 
are about 5-9% of our mainframe customers that leave the platform each year, 
however, it is wrong to assume that the mainframe industry is not still 
thriving and attempting to move into the modern world.  At this point TCP/IP 
is the fastest growing product introduced to our segment in about 20 years.  
I personally have never seen anything like it.  Since the mainframe is a 
large server within the environment, it is hard to estimate how many personal 
workstations are using our software, but conservatively its around 3-4 
million, and growing about 700,000 per year.  I do not find these number to 
be embarrassing, and they clearly show that mainframe shops have a commitment 
to TCP/IP.

    I only that the time to point out some of these things, because most of 
the comments I have received include the idea that the mainframe is dead or 
dying.  This is far from the truth.  The mainframe environments that remain 
are serious data processing people, with real world concerns and interests.

    Now, I do find it interesting that we have not had more questions about 
mobile computing devices.  It is quite possible that there is very little 
mainframe software geared towards these types of devices and therein lays the 
lack of interest.  But e-business is the most recent major movement within 
the IBM world, and I find it hard to envision true e-business without mobile 
computing.

    John Rankin