How the Mainframe Survives
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Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes "In 1991, Stewart Alsop, the editor of InfoWorld predicted that the last mainframe computer would be unplugged by 1996 yet last month, IBM introduced the latest version of its mainframe and mainframe technology remains a large and lucrative business for IBM providing the back-office engines behind the world's financial markets and much of global commerce The mainframe stands as a telling case in the larger story of survivor technologies and markets where old technology may lose ground to the insurgent, as mainframes did to the personal computer but the old technology or business often finds a sustainable, profitable life. In the 1990s IBM. overhauled the insides of the mainframe, using low-cost microprocessors as the computing engine and the company invested and updated the mainframe software. "The mainframe survived its near-death experience and continues to thrive because customers didn't care about the underlying technology," said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, who led the technical transformation of the mainframe. "Customers just wanted the mainframe to do its job at a lower cost, and IBM made the investments to make that happen.""
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How the Mainframe Survives