Let's all stop ignoring the elephant in the room - what we think IBM needs to do is to allow some (maybe older) versions of its software to be legally licensed and used for development and POC and really small business projects on freely available emulators running on commodity platforms. Unsupported, as-is, etc. would be fine.
Hercules is one such emulator, maybe L^zlabs will make another available, who knows? Until and unless IBM permits its software to be freely available (perhaps only out-of-support versions) to run legally under such emulators it cannot gain traction in the rest of the IT world outside of large corporations. What IBM fears of course is that unscrupulous actors would use such licenses to avoid running current versions and thereby lose IBM very lucrative licensing and purchase fees. It seems to be a not-unreasonable fear in the world as it is now (Russia, China, et. al.), but the alternative is losing all their business anyway by keeping it closed, so they seem to be between a rock and a hard place on this subject. And don't forget that there was at least one IBM CEO (90's I think) who absolutely promised investors at an annual meeting that IBM would always focus only on "high-margin" businesses and would exit any business that was not high-margin (see: PC's, chips, etc. They kept their word ...). Hobbyist and small-user business is the opposite of high-margin. Could they follow the AWS business model? Of course they could. But is it high-margin enough for them to actively pursue? Doubtful. I frankly doubt that the top layers of IBM even care if the z business (eventually) goes away. Watson and cloud are their new saviors and future cash cows (or so they hope). Just my $0.02USD worth. Peter -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Steve Beaver Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 4:42 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Why Can't You Buy z Mainframe Services from Amazon Cloud Services? if you're looking at 35 MSU range you're looking at is the BC 12 Sent from my iPhone Steve Beaver > On Dec 9, 2016, at 15:33, Ward, Mike S <mw...@ssfcu.org> wrote: > > 35 MIP or 35 MSU? > > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On > Behalf Of Steve > Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 9:56 AM > To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU > Subject: Re: Why Can't You Buy z Mainframe Services from Amazon Cloud > Services? > > If you look at equipment resellers, you can get a 35 MIP z10 for next to > nothing. You still need storage and communications and software like CICS > and power > > Steve Beaver > > -----Original Message----- > From: "Bigendian Smalls" <mainfr...@bigendiansmalls.com> > Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 10:33am > To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU > Subject: Re: Why Can't You Buy z Mainframe Services from Amazon Cloud > Services? > > Timothy - > > I did read all the links on your page - it’s what prompted the rant. And, > likewise, if you read my post in its entirety, you know that 15 days of a > “test-drive of development-based tools on Z” does positively and unquivocally > zero to address the items I enumerated. No way that testdrive (and its anemic > 15 day limit) would provide an intelligent person an even remotely fighting > chance of learning anything useful about the platform with which to make a > decision on schooling, trade or vocation. Is there value in the link you > provided? Sure. Does it address anything I said. Nope. > > Respectfully, > > Chad > >> On Dec 9, 2016, at 12:40 AM, Timothy Sipples <sipp...@sg.ibm.com> wrote: >> >> Bigendian Smalls wrote: >>> TL;DR - there needs to be a free version of z/os & it’s siblings >>> sooner than later, to not do this is to potentially starve the platoform >>> out of >> existence as we know it. >> >> Didn't anybody read the page that I linked to? There is, already. For >> up to 15 days. >> >> Charles Mills wrote: >>> What??? THIS is IBM's answer??? >> >> As a reminder, I do not speak for IBM. If you'd like *IBM's* answer, >> ask IBM through an official channel. *My* answer, writing only for >> himself, is to state a plain fact: free z/OS access is available, >> today, from IBM, for up to 15 days. I believe in facts. Let's at least >> start with them. IBM probably will if you're going to make an argument with >> IBM. >> >> Scott Chapman wrote: >>> I don't see anything there that says one can do real -- This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
