> On Oct 9, 2017, at 6:36 AM, John Eells <ee...@us.ibm.com> wrote: > > In addition to what I wrote above, we, like everyone else, are driven by > client behaviors and available technologies. So let's talk about numbers for > a minute. > > As of this March, 86% of our orders are being downloaded, and every time we > get new numbers that percentage goes up. Of the remainder, the last year I > pulled numbers to break down DVD vs. tape, about 2/3 of orders delivered on > physical media were on DVD. That was a couple of years ago. If I > extrapolate the trend we saw then, that 1/3 of the remainder is probably more > like 1/6 today. > > In other words, tape orders are dwindling, and not slowly. > > At some point, we will almost certainly drop tape support for software > delivery. It seems very likely to me that we simply will not be able to > justify replacing the tape drives in the distribution centers once our > current tape drives reach end of life. > > I hope nobody finds this surprising. We have, for example, discussed this > before in IBM-MAIN. > > In a future without tape, if you do not have optical drives and cannot > connect to the Internet, you will need to take a laptop outside the firewall, > download your order, bring it back in, and upload it to your z/OS system. > This is already supported and documented, and has been for well over a decade > now. > > — John:
Our auditors would hop all over me and my management if we ever did something like what you are talking about. One time I got a fix for one of our MF products and I had to get the Presidents personal OK for me to upload it to the MF. It was an *EXTREMELY* important fix. The auditor sat with me while I explained to the President how I got the fix and how I was going to upload it to the MF. The auditor grilled me like there was his job on the line (mine was more likely the case). The auditor asked every blankety blank detail on how I learned about the fix and the product that was involved the fix number and how I d/l’d it. How was I going to get it to the MF and on and on. I felt like I was guilty for even asking for it. I asked him in the future did he want to get involved and micromanage every fix and he said *YES*. The President said well we have a solution. I *Never* want to go through that again. He did not blink when I asked him if Tape was OK and he said sure as long as the package is sealed from the vendor to us. IOW we are going to be majorly hurt if IBM decided to drop tape. Ed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
