eWEEK Europe Readers Remain Mainframe Loyalists

Mark Twain once said when he spotted a premature newspaper obituary regarding himself. “The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” The same could be said for the mainframe, with a significant number of users actually planning to increase their mainframe investments, according to a poll of eWEEK readers.

The mainframe has been around now in one form or another since the early 1950s and, despite its incredible longevity, many continue to believe that ‘big iron’ is a relic of a bygone age. But the fact remains that the mainframe continues to be the engine of choice among certain elements of the business and financial sector.

That said, it is difficult to paint a complete picture of the overall health of the mainframe market based on the number of responses to the poll so far, but it is clear that it still enjoys a loyal customer base.

Indeed one reader said that the mainframe was “still the most reliable platform for serious IT.”

Mainframe Future

There is little doubt that the very high cost of mainframes has decreased dramatically over the decades but, that said, the mainframe does still require a hefty financial commitment. This is reflected in the fact that 33.3 percent of our readers admitted that their businesses were too small to run mainframes.

But IBM, who dominates this industry, is not giving up without a fight. Big Blue has recently had its biggest mainframe launch in 20 years, with the zEnterprise server – a 5000 MIPs monster which includes a blade chassis with Power7 and Intel x86 servers under the mainframe’s control.

This development comes despite rival vendors becoming increasingly vocal in speaking out against the mainframe. HP for example has said that IBM is pushing mainframes like heroin, and Dell has revealed how it saved £100 million by turning its mainframes off.

Who is right then? It seems that there is a bit of a mixed message about the future of the mainframe, after 30 percent of readers said they plan to increase their mainframe capacity. However, this must be offset by the 20 percent of readers who admitted that they plan to reduce their mainframe investment, and the 10 percent of readers who have already got rid of them.

So does the fact that tight IT budgets and the perceived lack of mainframe skills, translate into a declining niche? Hard to say, but it seems that there remains a committed portion of the industry that will continue to stand by their big iron investments.

Next poll: What’s your company’s open source policy?

This week’s new poll (in the left column of the eWEEK Europe website) will also appeal to a committed but equally loyal user base, as we quiz our readers on their company’s open source policies.

Are the days of proprietary software dead? Certainly, open source seems to be going from strength to strength at the moment. You only have to look at the sales of open source Android-based phones for example, which have soared in the UK over the last quarter. Indeed, according to  German global knowledge provider GfK Retail and Technology, sales of Android phones increased by a staggering 350 percent over the last quarter, with Android’s share of the British smartphone contract market rocketing from three percent to 13.2 percent.

But can open source bridge the credibility gap in the corporate sector – many of whom are still operating fleets of traditional PC desktops running the ancient Windows XP operating system. Well, there are signs that the remainder of this year will see businesses once again open their wallets for IT spending purposes. That will be good news for the likes of Intel and Microsoft, with the latter finally overcoming its Vista nightmare and recording healthy sales of Windows 7.

But will Microsoft and co. ever be able to return to the ‘golden age’ of the late 1990s, when they could claim undisputed leadership of the corporate IT sector? Tell us what you think about the chances of open source in taking on the software heavyweights. Will open source be increasingly used in your business? What about your concerns over support, reliability, and whether open source software can be used in major production systems?

Click on this week’s poll and let us know – and join in the debate if you want to.