[Nottingham] OT - developing skills on the mainframe

[BUNTER MATTHEW]

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12.19

All,

Apologies for asking this here but your interest in Linux and other thin=
gs
technical is valid for this question.

A bit of background. Contrary to what many people say the mainframe is
still alive and running as *THE* central server in 90% of the Fortune 10=
00
companies. Manufacturing, banking, finance, insurance companies and othe=
rs
are still reliant on it for doing business.

The pool of systems programmers is declining. The majority who have the
competence have had over 20 years experience. The number of people learn=
ing
the mainframe (OS390 and or z/OS) is declining. IBM and others are tryin=
g
various methods to get people interested.

So my question is this :

What are the top five things that IBM, companies using the mainframe and
educational establishments could do to entice people (such as yourselves=
)
into learning the mainframe?

Regards,

Matt

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