The actual start of the migration off the mainframe started shortly after the current one was purchased. It replaced two older systems was meant to be the last one.
Still this was more than just a get off the mainframe push, this was a complete change in culture and philosophy. Up until 1999 almost all software was homegrown and maintained. Only the financial system was from an outside vendor and the reports from it were heavily customized. The company wanted to shift from homegrown to vendor provided and in some cases even vendor hosted solutions. There was no way this was going to be done quickly due to cost alone, but the 5 year plan took twice as long because not everything was looked. Still, top management placed a guy with an accounting background over IT. In his view, shared by top management, the mainframe and its green screen was old out of date technology and the world was moving to Microsoft Windows. They really did not want to hear or understand anything else. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
