Disincentives for MVS & future of MVS systems programmers
Marvin.Lukasik
my 2 thoughts on this topic:
(1) IBM blew it big time about 8-10 years ago when they
insisted on staying with their proprietary networking
rather than getting on board with the rest of the world
and go with TCP/IP. Even that egomaniac Gates saw the
handwriting on the wall and de-emphasized NetBEUI in favor
of TCP/IP. Having their systems inter-network with the rest
of the world's machines would have saved many a mainframe.
Today's Unix services and TCP/IP is too little too late.
How many times has IBM completely re-written TCP/IP since
it first came out? 3? 4? Have you looked at the amount
of maintenance ( # PTFs ) required for anything that
runs on Unix services? It's ridiculous and makes me
want to avoid it like the plague.
(2) The REAL big thing that is killing mainframe shops is
the way software is priced on mainframes. It is almost
always priced by the power of the machine it runs on.
Almost all other platforms price by the "seat" ( # of
users). If we want to buy one the new G6s or whatevers,
we will get killed. Whenever we run out of cycles on our
box, the software costs ALWAYS outweigh the hardware costs.
To you software vendors out there: Wake up! Just because
the rest on the mainframe industry is stupid to price like
this doesn't mean you have to.
Please note that this is written by a mainframe advocate,
a sysprog with 30+ years experience and is sadly watching
this fine platform slip away for all the wrong reasons.
Marv
The zen master Bashi once said:
A flute without holes is not a flute,
but a donut without a hole is a Danish.
.... Chevy Chase in "Caddy Shack"
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Miss Yvette Seifert Hirth, CCP, CDP
I agree about the mainframe pricing. That's why my firm has "one size fits
all" pricing, i.e., no tiers. Upgrades are a penalty for growing your
business, much like escalating taxes (perhaps even worse). With my firm,
you pay for a license once, and that's it.
I hope other vendors notice what you said.
/end warning
Yvette
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Miss Yvette Seifert Hirth, CCP, CDP Voice: (847) 263 6800
The DBT Group, Inc. Fax: (847) 263 6801
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Gurnee, IL 60031 WWW: http://www.dbtgroup.com
NOTE: Please remove all occurrances of "nospam." from my address before
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"The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard."
--Anonymous
Marty Stahl
There is little that needs comment on in what you say. My favorite part of
you message is definitely the "Zen" quote in your signature.
I do love a good smile. Thanks!
My regards and blessings are yours,
Marty Stahl
New thoughts create new conditions
-Ernest Holmes
Imbriale, Donald , Exchange
One large vendor lost many customers some years ago because of predatory
pricing and tier pricing. Today another large vendor is losing customers
for the same reason. I believe no one, customers or vendors, should have a
problem with payment for software being based on usage rather than the size
of the platform on which it runs. Whenever I have the opportunity to
discuss this with vendors I strongly suggest that they move away from tier
pricing if they want to retain and grow their customer base.
Don Imbriale
-----Original Message-----
From: Miss Yvette Seifert Hirth, CCP, CDP [SMTP:yve...@DBTGROUP.COM]
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 14:43
To: IBM-...@BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Disincentives for MVS & future of MVS systems
programmers
/start warning - I am a vendor
I agree about the mainframe pricing. That's why my firm has "one size fits
all" pricing, i.e., no tiers. Upgrades are a penalty for growing your
business, much like escalating taxes (perhaps even worse). With my firm,
you pay for a license once, and that's it.
I hope other vendors notice what you said.
/end warning
***********************************************************************
Bear Stearns is not responsible for any recommendation, solicitation,
offer or agreement or any information about any transaction, customer
account or account activity contained in this communication.
***********************************************************************
Bruce Black
>
> (2) The REAL big thing that is killing mainframe shops is
> the way software is priced on mainframes. It is almost
> always priced by the power of the machine it runs on.
> Almost all other platforms price by the "seat" ( # of
> users). If we want to buy one the new G6s or whatevers,
> we will get killed. Whenever we run out of cycles on our
> box, the software costs ALWAYS outweigh the hardware costs.
> To you software vendors out there: Wake up! Just because
> the rest on the mainframe industry is stupid to price like
> this doesn't mean you have to.
Look for IBM to address this in the VERY near future.
--
Bruce A. Black
Senior Software Developer for
FDR, CPK, ABR, SOS, UPSTREAM, FATS/FATAR
Innovation Data Processing
Little Falls, NJ 07424
973-890-7300
personal: bbl...@fdrinnovation.com
sales info: sa...@fdrinnovation.com
tech support: sup...@fdrinnovation.com
Jon Brock
http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47-68-84-88-94_STO45944_TOP
Windows,00.html
<snip>
2) The REAL big thing that is killing mainframe shops is
the way software is priced on mainframes. It is almost
always priced by the power of the machine it runs on.
Almost all other platforms price by the "seat" ( # of
users). If we want to buy one the new G6s or whatevers,
we will get killed. Whenever we run out of cycles on our
box, the software costs ALWAYS outweigh the hardware costs.
</snip>
Phil Payne
> the way software is priced on mainframes. It is almost
> always priced by the power of the machine it runs on.
> Almost all other platforms price by the "seat" ( # of
> users). If we want to buy one the new G6s or whatevers,
> we will get killed. Whenever we run out of cycles on our
> box, the software costs ALWAYS outweigh the hardware costs.
> the rest on the mainframe industry is stupid to price like
> this doesn't mean you have to.
There seem to be a turf war going on within IBM, too. The System/390
hardware division wants to drop prices (immediately, VM to host lots of
Linuxes, later OS/390) to compete in the new world of large UNIX
systems. Software Division is digging its hells in, it would appear.
IMO Big Lou should wander round to Software and bang their heads
together. HARD.
--
Phil Payne
Phone +44 7785 302803 Fax +44 7785 309674
Phil Payne
>
> "Marvin.Lukasik" wrote:
> >
> > (2) The REAL big thing that is killing mainframe shops is
> > the way software is priced on mainframes. It is almost
> > always priced by the power of the machine it runs on.
> > Almost all other platforms price by the "seat" ( # of
> > users). If we want to buy one the new G6s or whatevers,
> > we will get killed. Whenever we run out of cycles on our
> > box, the software costs ALWAYS outweigh the hardware costs.
> > To you software vendors out there: Wake up! Just because
> > the rest on the mainframe industry is stupid to price like
> > this doesn't mean you have to.
>
I've heard the rumours and had the briefings. Don't hold your breath.
I've never heard an IBMer talk as much sense about mainframe software
pricing as Bill Zeitler. I'm optimistic about it, but not about the
timescale.
Rick Fochtman
(2) The REAL big thing that is killing mainframe shops is the way software
is priced on mainframes. It is almost always priced by the power of the
machine it runs on. ...
<more snippage>
Look for IBM to address this in the VERY near future.
<unsnip>
It's about time SOMEBODY came to their senses. Now if only the other
vendors would follow that sort of lead. Some of the vendors' prices and
pricing schemes are downright predatory!
Hood, Gary
is priced on mainframes. It is almost always priced by the power of the
machine it runs on. ...
Look for IBM to address this in the VERY near future.
Only problem is, it may be too little too late. We are already knee deep in
NT boxes BECAUSE of IBM and other mainframe software pricing schemes. I
can't push DB2 on my management when it cost $300K compared to $3K for SQL
server. YES, you can preach to me about the reliability, etc. etc. But the
fact remains
when management sees a choice between $300,000 and $3,000, guess which one
they choose.
Phil Payne
Jon Brock wrote:
> If you don't like that, you may not like this, either:
> http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47-68-84-88-94_STO45944_TOPWindows,00.html
It all depends on your definition of 'processor'. That seems to be the
key to IBM's intentions.
Joe Zitzelberger
for $19 million/year/5-year-contract for a basic set of tools I made the
obvious suggestion to my boss.
Take the money you would spend on the software and hire some developers
to build a tool with the feature set of you need to replace them. In
many cases it is cheaper to give a few developers a try at cloning the
software you need. You also get the added bonus of being able to sell
the new tool to others in your position. When you migrate to a G6 and
the software bills are just too abusive you might consider this as an
option.
Leaving everything in the hands of CA or BMC or ummmm, that other company
-- there is still one left isn't there -- is just asking to be gouged.
>>=Marvin.Lukasik at Marvin....@CARLE.COM said on 6/29/2000 14:26=<<
>Since the holiday draws near, I'll take the time to get in
>my 2 thoughts on this topic:
>
>(1) IBM blew it big time about 8-10 years ago when they
>insisted on staying with their proprietary networking
>rather than getting on board with the rest of the world
>and go with TCP/IP. Even that egomaniac Gates saw the
>handwriting on the wall and de-emphasized NetBEUI in favor
>of TCP/IP. Having their systems inter-network with the rest
>of the world's machines would have saved many a mainframe.
>Today's Unix services and TCP/IP is too little too late.
>How many times has IBM completely re-written TCP/IP since
>it first came out? 3? 4? Have you looked at the amount
>of maintenance ( # PTFs ) required for anything that
>runs on Unix services? It's ridiculous and makes me
>want to avoid it like the plague.
>
>(2) The REAL big thing that is killing mainframe shops is
>the way software is priced on mainframes. It is almost
>always priced by the power of the machine it runs on.
>Almost all other platforms price by the "seat" ( # of
>users). If we want to buy one the new G6s or whatevers,
>we will get killed. Whenever we run out of cycles on our
>box, the software costs ALWAYS outweigh the hardware costs.
>To you software vendors out there: Wake up! Just because
>the rest on the mainframe industry is stupid to price like
>this doesn't mean you have to.
>
>Please note that this is written by a mainframe advocate,
>a sysprog with 30+ years experience and is sadly watching
>this fine platform slip away for all the wrong reasons.
>
>Marv
>
>
>The zen master Bashi once said:
>A flute without holes is not a flute,
>but a donut without a hole is a Danish.
>.... Chevy Chase in "Caddy Shack"
-=Psychedelic Harry=-
http://ldl.net/~zberger/
User Haiku #11 -
Wind catches lily
scatt'ring petals to the wind:
segmentation fault.
McKown, John
>From: Joe Zitzelberger [SMTP:zbe...@KNOLOGY.NET]
>Sent: Friday, June 30, 2000 10:33 AM
>To: IBM-...@BAMA.UA.EDU
>Subject: Re: Disincentives for MVS & future of MVS systems
programmers
>Take the money you would spend on the software and hire some
developers
>to build a tool with the feature set of you need to replace them.
In
>many cases it is cheaper to give a few developers a try at cloning
the
>software you need. You also get the added bonus of being able to
sell
>the new tool to others in your position. When you migrate to a G6
and
>the software bills are just too abusive you might consider this as
an
>option.
That seems to be the exact OPPOSITE of what many shops are doing. It
seems, to me, that upper management doesn't really want their programming
staff to be gurus. They want them to buy a package which does 90%+ of what
is needed (sometimes changing their business practices to conform to the
package). The programmers then usually only do some customization and maybe
some report programs. I guess this is a reaction to the fact that
programmers tend to move around. What happens to your super great system
when the original architects and programmers have left? Of course,
programmers probably wouldn't move around as much if companies went to the
"trouble" of having a really great workplace (money + interesting projects).
Just some cynical observations.
Johnson, Bill , GLIC
the places that I worked ever developed any systems in house. Management
thought it was much easier to buy a package and modify it to conform to your
business practices. The reality was that the implementations sometimes took
a year or longer and you wound up with a highly modified package that was
almost impossible to upgrade to the next release. Plus the fact that you
don't get much satisfaction or expertise from the mundane and mechanical
process of installing packages.
Bill Johnson DBA
Allstate Insurance Co.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: McKown, John [SMTP:JMc...@HEALTHAXIS.COM]
> Sent: Friday, June 30, 2000 11:47 AM
> To: IBM-...@BAMA.UA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Disincentives for MVS & future of MVS systems
> programmers
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Joe Zitzelberger [SMTP:zbe...@KNOLOGY.NET]
> >Sent: Friday, June 30, 2000 10:33 AM
> >To: IBM-...@BAMA.UA.EDU
>
Howard Brazee
Joe Zitzelberger wrote:
>
> After a nameless database tool company tried to hold up my current shop
> for $19 million/year/5-year-contract for a basic set of tools I made the
> obvious suggestion to my boss.
That's why most "hold up"s are not real in technical industries.
Alternatives exist. Technological monopolies are gone in an eye-blink
and political monopolies don't last much longer (cable TV, IDSN).
Jynx
>
8<
> That seems to be the exact OPPOSITE of what many shops are doing. It
>seems, to me, that upper management doesn't really want their programming
>staff to be gurus. They want them to buy a package which does 90%+ of what
>is needed (sometimes changing their business practices to conform to the
>package). The programmers then usually only do some customization and maybe
>some report programs.
That's pretty much what I've seen in recent years. I know there are
still quite a few Real IBM System Programmers -- because I see you
all participating here in bit.listserv.ibm-main.
But, all-in-all, many of the people I've met that claim to be System
Programmers are simply Package Installers, and all of the code
I've seen written by them is atrocious.
Now, the Reason(s) for this State Of Affairs would be grist for
a (long) new thread.
Jonesy
Mainframe since 1966
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | OS/2
Gunnison, Colorado | @ | Jonesy | linux __
7,703' -- 2,345m | frontier.net | DM68mn SK
Howard Brazee
> seems, to me, that upper management doesn't really want their programming
> staff to be gurus. They want them to buy a package which does 90%+ of what
> is needed (sometimes changing their business practices to conform to the
> package). The programmers then usually only do some customization and maybe
> programmers tend to move around. What happens to your super great system
> when the original architects and programmers have left? Of course,
> programmers probably wouldn't move around as much if companies went to the
> "trouble" of having a really great workplace (money + interesting projects).
> Just some cynical observations.
This may be common practice, but is it good practice? I am thinking of
the days when Univac bought the RCA computer design. They designed a
good copy of the RCA computer and then laid off the expensive design
engineers. Then IBM hired those same engineers and created the 360
(which looks a lot like the Univac 90/30 and the earlier RCA design).
IBM kept the engineers employed and kept upgrading their hardware.
So go back in time to the 1960s and buy either Univac or IBM stock. Who
remembers the CIO of Univac at the time?
Fitting your company into someone else's idea of how business should run
does not give you a competitive advantage. Even if it does save you
from the effort of keeping skilled technical staff...
Len Rugen
call it "best practices"....
Of course, after a life-cycle experience on those packages, the installers
are worth $125,000 per year....
Beinert, William
Bill
-----Original Message-----
From: Len Rugen [mailto:rug...@MISSOURI.EDU]
Sent: Friday, June 30, 2000 2:03 PM
To: IBM-...@BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Disincentives for MVS & future of MVS systems programmers
Howard Brazee
twice as long as projected, but when it doesn't work as well as we want,
we take the blame.
If we buy a package from outside it will cost 4 times as much and take 4
times as long, but we will have someone external to blame.
It's a no brainer.
Phil Payne
> Agree completely. Having been an Applications person from 1985-1995, none of
> the places that I worked ever developed any systems in house. Management
> thought it was much easier to buy a package and modify it to conform to your
> business practices. The reality was that the implementations sometimes took
> a year or longer and you wound up with a highly modified package that was
> almost impossible to upgrade to the next release. Plus the fact that you
> don't get much satisfaction or expertise from the mundane and mechanical
> process of installing packages.
It is thought that this might change. One of IBM's reasons for
embracing Linux so thoroughly (look for 64-bit virtual addressing in
Linux/390 almost 18 months before OS/390) is access to the huge skill
pool of Linux-aware college graduates a couple of years down the pipe.
A lot of gurus are suggesting that in-house development might once more
become the vogue.
David Alcock
-snip-
> IBM blew it big time about 8-10 years ago when
> they insisted on staying with their proprietary
> networking rather than getting on board with the
Funny, I got on the Internet for the first time from TSO using TELNET
and FTP back in 1991 using IBM's TCP/IP V1 for MVS. This was before
there was a standard stack available for Windoze machines as seen at
<http://telemat.die.unifi.it/book/Internet/Socket/winsock.htm#Origins>.
Web browsers really didn't take off until 1994. At that time, IBM's
WebExplorer on OS/2 was more stable than Netscape 1.0. Microsoft hadn't
yet bought the browser that they later turned into Internet Explorer.
The way I remember things is that when customers needed TCP/IP on the
mainframe, IBM delivered it (before that toy O/S got it)...
John S. Giltner, Jr.
commercial world. The big Internet take off has only been over the last
5-7 years or so and only the last 2-3 for business functions. We looked
at using TCP/IP in 1992, but none of our large customer wanted to do it.
We only had 2 customers that wanted it and they did not generate enough
workload to support the costs. They did not generate enough workload to
justify buying a PC.
IBM has had TCP/IP on MVS for over 10 (late 80's) years and on VM well
before that. I remember reading some where that one of the first "web
servers" ran on VM.
Gates did not de-emphasize NetBEUI until Windows 95. Windows for
Workgroups use NetBEUI as default, but did support TCP/IP however it came
out in 1992.
The first version of Windows that could interface TCP/IP was Windows V3.0,
released in 1991. Windows V2 knew nothing about TCP/IP.
How many times has the TCP/IP stack on Windows, or any other platform,
been re-written.
Cost and testing are two big issues facing the mainframe environment. A PC
is a cheaper platform (both hardware and software) for R&D type
functions. It is also easier to create a test environment that has no
impact on your production environment. You could use LPAR's but the way
management looks at it is if we have enough capacity to have a test
system, then we spent to much money upgrading the box.
IBM is changing their pricing. Web Sphere Application Server Enterprise
Edition is $35K per processor no matter what platform. So if I have a
X87, and do not LPAR, it costs me $280K. If I have a 8-way Netfinity it
still costs me $280K. Guess which one support more users and can do more
transactions.
Just as a F.Y.I. Microsoft has just announced that it is going to the
same type of pricing for most of it's server based products.
"Marvin.Lukasik" wrote:
> Since the holiday draws near, I'll take the time to get in
> my 2 thoughts on this topic:
>
> (1) IBM blew it big time about 8-10 years ago when they
> insisted on staying with their proprietary networking
> rather than getting on board with the rest of the world
Edward J. Finnell, III , Ed
around for several years. I'm not sure about OS/2 it didn't get good
until about Warp 3.0. Think T/R is still IBM's corporate standard.
It's much more efficient and secure, just can't do dancin' aureolaes
with the rest of the 'em.
Edward(Ed) J. Finnell, III
Enterprise Systems/Proj. Mgr.
url:www.ua.edu
Miss Yvette Seifert Hirth, CCP, CDP
"Dancing aureolaes"?
Is this a technical term? Are you an Ob-gyne? Does this belong on a public list?
OK, I've used far worse language in private (*far* worse). So my sensibilities aren't offended. But there are some who may be.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Miss Yvette Seifert Hirth, CCP, CDP Voice: (847) 263 6800
The DBT Group, Inc. Fax: (847) 263 6801
176 Ambrogio Drive Email: yve...@dbtgroup.com
Gurnee, IL 60031 WWW: http://www.dbtgroup.com
"The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard."
--Anon
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Leonard Woren
> Funny, I got on the Internet for the first time from TSO using TELNET
> and FTP back in 1991 using IBM's TCP/IP V1 for MVS.
Funny, I got on the ARPAnet for the first time using TELNET and
FTP back in 1973 using UCLA's ACP (Arpanet Control Program) for MVT.
That was around 12 years before the term "Internet" came into use,
and even a number of years before TCP/IP existed. It was also years
before PCs, DOS, Windoze, and all the other toys. Somewhere amongst
my junk, I have a single 11 x 14 7/8 sheet line printer map of the
1973 worldwide ARPAnet -- all 43 nodes.
A company called ACC bought a non-exclusive license to UCLA's ACP,
and put out a product called Acces/MVS (yep, that's the spelling.)
When they finally realized that they couldn't support it, they sold
it to Interlink, where last I heard it was called SNS/TCPaccess or
some such.
/Leonard
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> I do not remember TCP/ IP being a big player 8-10 years ago, in the
> commercial world. The big Internet take off has only been over the last
> 5-7 years or so and only the last 2-3 for business functions. We looked
> at using TCP/IP in 1992, but none of our large customer wanted to do it.
> We only had 2 customers that wanted it and they did not generate enough
> workload to support the costs. They did not generate enough workload to
> justify buying a PC.
there various kinds of disincentive for tcp/ip on mainframe
... including pricing. there were also episodes like the initial
tcp/ip implementation integrated into vtam had significantly higher
thruput than lu6.2 and there was direction that it had to be redone to
be significantly lower thruput than lu6.2.
random refs.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#51
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#53
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#85
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#90
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#51
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#52
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#54
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#56
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#201
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#202
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@adcomsys.net, ly...@garlic.com
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ http://www.adcomsys.net/lynn/
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> Funny, I got on the ARPAnet for the first time using TELNET and
> FTP back in 1973 using UCLA's ACP (Arpanet Control Program) for MVT.
>
> That was around 12 years before the term "Internet" came into use,
> and even a number of years before TCP/IP existed. It was also years
> before PCs, DOS, Windoze, and all the other toys. Somewhere amongst
> my junk, I have a single 11 x 14 7/8 sheet line printer map of the
> 1973 worldwide ARPAnet -- all 43 nodes.
as an aside, the internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet
from just about the beginning until into the mid-80s.
random ref:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#112
with respect to UCLA (from rfc1251)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#72
Tony Babonas
Bruce Black
n.
1.A circle of light or radiance surrounding the head or body of
a representation of a deity or
holy person; a halo.
whatever were you thinking of, Yvette!!!
"Miss Yvette Seifert Hirth, CCP, CDP" wrote:
>
> ahem.
>
> "Dancing aureolaes"?
>
> Is this a technical term? Are you an Ob-gyne? Does this belong on a public list?
>
> OK, I've used far worse language in private (*far* worse). So my sensibilities aren't offended. But there are some who may be.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Miss Yvette Seifert Hirth, CCP, CDP Voice: (847) 263 6800
> The DBT Group, Inc. Fax: (847) 263 6801
> 176 Ambrogio Drive Email: yve...@dbtgroup.com
> Gurnee, IL 60031 WWW: http://www.dbtgroup.com
>
> "The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard."
> --Anon
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
> send email to list...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
--
Bruce A. Black
Senior Software Developer for
FDR, CPK, ABR, SOS, UPSTREAM, FATS/FATAR
Innovation Data Processing
Little Falls, NJ 07424
973-890-7300
personal: bbl...@fdrinnovation.com
sales info: sa...@fdrinnovation.com
tech support: sup...@fdrinnovation.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Miss Yvette Seifert Hirth, CCP, CDP
circles of light" used quite that way, before. In fact, I've never heard of
those words used together. Maybe it's because I missed seminary school,
huh.
However, I have heard of *that other spelling* used in a contiguous manner
with the word dancing. And *no*, you're not going to bait me into using it
here.
IF Ed meant "dancing circles of light" then I of course apologize.
However, you should be aware that Ed sent me in private this text: "It's not
as bad as what one hears on TV nowadays".
Now *why* would someone compare dancing circles of light to what one hears
on TV? Hmmm....
Was it a finger check or not? Was it s'posed to be a naughty word or not?
You be the judge.
AAR, it seems I've wasted enough time on this issue.
Happy 4th, everybody!
/ysh
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Miss Yvette Seifert Hirth, CCP, CDP Voice: (847) 263 6800
The DBT Group, Inc. Fax: (847) 263 6801
176 Ambrogio Drive Email: yve...@dbtgroup.nospam.com
Gurnee, IL 60031 WWW: http://www.dbtgroup.com
NOTE: Please remove all occurrances of "nospam." from my address before
sending me email!
"... there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute
dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they
insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do
things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to
maintain that what they said was true."
--Richard P. Feynman
----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce Black <bbl...@FDRINNOVATION.COM>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
To: <IBM-...@BAMA.UA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 1:03 PM
Subject: Re: Disincentives for MVS & future of MVS systems programmers
Michael J Porter
Marvin.Lukasik <IBM-...@BAMA.UA.EDU> wrote:
=>(2) The REAL big thing that is killing mainframe shops is
=>the way software is priced on mainframes. It is almost
=>always priced by the power of the machine it runs on.
=>Almost all other platforms price by the "seat" ( # of
=>users). If we want to buy one the new G6s or whatevers,
=>we will get killed. Whenever we run out of cycles on our
=>box, the software costs ALWAYS outweigh the hardware costs.
=>To you software vendors out there: Wake up! Just because
=>the rest on the mainframe industry is stupid to price like
=>this doesn't mean you have to.
This is the driving force behind the University's plan to move away
from IBM. We probably have 3-10 SAS users on the mainframe. One
or two using SPSS, but we're paying for a group 40 license. We're
paying too much for CA software...ADABAS software...
=>Please note that this is written by a mainframe advocate,
=>a sysprog with 30+ years experience and is sadly watching
=>this fine platform slip away for all the wrong reasons.
I only have about 15 years experience, otherwise, same
paragraph...
=>Marv
Mike
--
===
Mike Porter <mi...@udel.edu>
PGP Fingerprint: F4 AE E1 9F 67 F7 DA EA 2F D2 37 F3 99 ED D1 C2
Michael J Porter
Phil Payne <ph...@isham-research.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
=>"Johnson, Bill , GLIC" wrote:
=>
=>> Agree completely. Having been an Applications person from 1985-1995, none of
=>> the places that I worked ever developed any systems in house. Management
=>> thought it was much easier to buy a package and modify it to conform to your
=>> business practices. The reality was that the implementations sometimes took
=>> a year or longer and you wound up with a highly modified package that was
=>> almost impossible to upgrade to the next release. Plus the fact that you
=>> don't get much satisfaction or expertise from the mundane and mechanical
=>> process of installing packages.
=>
=>It is thought that this might change. One of IBM's reasons for
=>embracing Linux so thoroughly (look for 64-bit virtual addressing in
=>Linux/390 almost 18 months before OS/390) is access to the huge skill
=>pool of Linux-aware college graduates a couple of years down the pipe.
=>
=>A lot of gurus are suggesting that in-house development might once more
=>become the vogue.
One reason this works with Linux is not just one company makes the
investment. There are several hundred active Linux developers - if
IBM had to employ all of them, embracing Linux would be a whole
different ball game.
Neil Pokorny
out by .... yes, you guessed it, CA.
So CA now owns TCPaccess.
Leonard Woren wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 01, 2000 at 01:10:38PM -0500, David Alcock (dal...@CSW.COM) wrote:
> > Funny, I got on the Internet for the first time from TSO using TELNET
> > and FTP back in 1991 using IBM's TCP/IP V1 for MVS.
>
> Funny, I got on the ARPAnet for the first time using TELNET and
> FTP back in 1973 using UCLA's ACP (Arpanet Control Program) for MVT.
>
> That was around 12 years before the term "Internet" came into use,
> and even a number of years before TCP/IP existed. It was also years
> before PCs, DOS, Windoze, and all the other toys. Somewhere amongst
> my junk, I have a single 11 x 14 7/8 sheet line printer map of the
> 1973 worldwide ARPAnet -- all 43 nodes.
>
> A company called ACC bought a non-exclusive license to UCLA's ACP,
> and put out a product called Acces/MVS (yep, that's the spelling.)
> When they finally realized that they couldn't support it, they sold
> it to Interlink, where last I heard it was called SNS/TCPaccess or
> some such.
>
> /Leonard
>