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To: MainFrame65

Sounds like you have done well....my timing was lousy.....left
well before the 2k event.


6 posted on 12/24/2004 11:32:17 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (A Proud member of Free Republic ~~The New Face of the Fourth Estate since 1996.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

When I retired at the end of '95, I was a bottom-feeder. Although I did some work in the large systems, my primary customer set was the small mainframes that ran VSE, and sometimes VM. At one time, as a PSR I had been assigned all 57 customers in and around Memphis that ran VSE. Then IBM tried to kill VSE. They shut down the development lab, and sent me off to MVS school so I could work at FedEx and Holiday Inn, but I still had to take calls from my old customers.

And new mainframes were getting more powerful all the time. My VSE customers had no need for the new power, and IBM eventually quit making the bottom end machines. They created the PC-based mainframe architecture systems that were large enough for some of my customers (6-8 MIPS). And when Fundamental Software came out with their Flex-ES mainframe emulator running on an Intel/Unix platform, IBM dropped out of the lower end entirely.

I replaced several low-end, non-Y2K compliant mainframes with these emulator systems, along with compliant software upgrades, and also switched most of their communications from SNA to TCP/IP. I get a call from one or another of them once in a while, but less than $1000 billed this year, versus $6800 for teaching 3 classes so far. But I LIKE the teaching a LOT more.


7 posted on 12/24/2004 12:03:06 PM PST by MainFrame65
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