Old PC Technology

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Not everything is “in the cloud.” “Mainframe”? Remember those? They’re still around…

This was in my inbox this morning. From “eWeek”:

“In essence, the reason that the mainframe has thrived for well over a half century is because IBM has reinvented it time and again to support the evolving needs and business requirements of its enterprise customers. That ability to evolve in order to support the evolution of others is clear in the Tailored Fit Pricing for IBM Z offerings that the company announced this past week.

So how exactly has IBM altered the mainframe over the years? For the first three decades, the company’s path was fairly conventional. The mainframe, after all, began as a digital complement to the mechanical calculators and other transaction-focused business machines that were central to IBM’s success. Over time, new technologies, including increasingly powerful database and middleware offerings, were used to extend the mainframe’s ability to support and extend emerging business applications.

Then in the mid- to late-1990s, IBM began exploring uncharted territory with its decision to formally and financially support Linux and other open source technologies, beginning with its (then named) zSeries mainframes. The decision was not universally popular—in fact, some IBM board members believed Linux would destroy the mainframe’s value. History proved those naysayers to be as utterly wrong as they were shortsighted.”