If they were so incredibly profitable, why isn't
IBM releasing loads of
new "z" things and trying to get one into every major education mill;
you know, to make sure that there will be enough know-how to keep these
/very profitable/ things up and running...?
That is the job of the p line of machines (aka RS/6000).
Anyway, IBM has has the "Master the Mainframe" program in schools for
a few years now.
And one of the problems, of course, is trying to sell a mainframe to
the bunches of die hard Unix fanatics that dominate the educational
system. IBM could gift z machines to a bunch of schools, and after a
month of so, I bet most or all would be running Linux.
They weren't wrong though, maybe a bit early with
their prediction at
most.
The past 25 years has shown us that mainframes are dying, but as I
posted, that rate seems to have leveled off. It seems that mainframes
have died as much as they are going to die.
--
Will