On the other hand, many companies have their heads buried in the sand
when it comes to this issue. They acknowledge that there is a problem
(add TPF to the list of OSes) and say that they are going to do
something about it. Guess what, they never do. They see an increase in
personnel costs that makes them put it on the back burner. Eventually,
they get hit by the retirement or other loss of a key player and either
muddle through with existing personnel, hire outside contractors, or
outsource.
As far as the demand for VM sysprogs is concerned, the increase in the
number of VM licenses has not been met by a corresponding increase in
demand for VM sysprogs. I attribute that to the fact that VM has become
nearly shrink-wrapped over the years. It takes far less sysprog time to
support a system now than it did 30, or 20, or even 10 years ago. The
smaller companies look on it almost the same as they do the OSes for x86
based systems - it is part of an appliance. They count the number of x86
systems they have and justify staff based on the numbers. The have only
1 zSystem, so hiring staff to support its OS is not justifiable. "What,
VM crashed!! Call the Maytag repairman."
Regards,
Richard Schuh
________________________________
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mary Anne Matyaz
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 7:20 AM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: Article: In Search of Mainframe Engineers
You know, I've been thinking about this and I just don't think I
buy this article, or this hoopla that we've heard for several years
about the aging mainframer and how to replace them and how scarce they
are. I just don't see that many job openings for MVS or VM. And I sure
don't see skyrocketing salaries, in fact IBM just cut salaries of a lot
of mainframers 15%. Now that is supposed to be offset by overtime but
those that I've talked to indicated overtime isn't allowed.
Personally, I think this is just a way to get more h1b visas
approved. If MVS or VM sysprogs were such a hot commodity, salaries
would be rising.
Thoughts?
MA
