Re: (not entirely...) OT: OPINION... chicken entrails, runic stones, and crystal balls... WAS CoBOL moved to OO

From: Gary (IDontThink_at_so.com.so)
Date: 01/02/04 

Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 19:57:53 GMT

"Doug Scott" <dwscott@ieee.org> wrote:
> There's nothing cheaper to operate than a big black box with thousands
> of wires coming out of it. If you're talking big iron, IBM can supply
> Linux as well as OSz or whatever it's called nowadays. Minimal support
> costs, maximal compatibility. We did all the figures - a client/server
> network is hideously expensive to manage and difficult to maintain
> UNLESSS you ties the users down to a standard configuration - and then
> you lose the benefits of user choice.

What's happening now is that the "big black box" is no longer the realm of
IBM alone (and IBM have known this for years now). The UNIX/Windows & Linux
systems (hardware, o/s, applications, people, ...) have continued to mature
to the point where they represent very competitive alternatives to the
mainframe. However, by and large, my observation is that when enterprises do
select an alternative, they choose a single (multi-processor) box. The only
networked aspect is (typically) browser clients (pretty much analagous to
the 3270/mainframe model). The primary reasons have been (a) greatly reduced
recurring operating cost and (b) platform agility.

Difficult to say if these "new mainframes" will ever (fully) co-operate in
distributed processing to the point where it is considered "industry
mainstream". For a while yet, IMO, the "single box" (whatever it is) will be
a strong preference for running the business.

Gary.

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