Tom Harper wrote:
Steve,
I can answer that last part. I encouraged my daughter (Kristine Harper)
to go into mainframe software development. She majored in Computer
Science at University of Arizona and graduated this last summer with
twelve job offers.
Tom, I met Kris at SHARE in Seattle. I'd even heard about
her before I met her. Great kid (well, at my age, they're
all kids, right?).
She heads up the z/Next Gen project at SHARE, and they had over fifty
attendees at their sessions (all new to z/OS platform).
I met a few of the z/Next Gen folks. Young and
enthusiastic (as young people should be). Iris
is the right person to be spearheading them, too.
The interesting thing is that out of her major graduating class of over
two hundred, only a few have jobs in the computer business (all in the
game software development area). One here in Sugar Land is working as a
restaurant manager. Jobs in the JAVA C++ area are hard to come by at
this time. I'm no expert, but I believe most of the corporate
infrastructure development was done in the 1995-2002 time- frame, and
demand has dropped off precipitously in that area. Also, many conversion
projects have been cancelled.
I think when you do career selection, you need to look towards the
future. I do not see non z/OS platforms doing what z/OS is doing in the
future. Our customer's data processing business is experiencing a
healthy growth rate, and has been for some time. As some baby boomers in
the main frame business retire, more and more positions will open up. I
think the future looks bright in this area. But that's just my personal
experience and opinions. I'm sure there are others out there that have
different experiences and thoughts.
Exactly. My experiences are that most of the prosepects
we call on tell us they are getting off the mainframe;
even some of the long-time big processing shops are either
trying to position to move off, or they are outsourcing
their mainframe work. Sure there will be some work on
z/OS in the future, but it will be done by a shrinking
core of companies that are kinda' locked in.
But as I've written before, IBM is not winning the hearts
and minds of the people who make the purchase / lease
decisions for IT systems. The mainframe is perceived as
obsolete and stodgy, even if that is not a fair assesment.
As far as "I do not see non z/OS platforms doing what z/OS
is doing in the future", management seems to agree only in
the sense they intend to do their work differently, so there
will be no need for z/OS style work.
I consider myself an optimist; but the z/OS future looks
bleak to me; and you may have seen my earlier post that
I am now looking for other work because I can no longer
support myself doing z/OS appication programmer training.
[If that changes soon, I'll be happy to get back into
it; but I need to make a living!]
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
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