IBM: Global mainframe revenues on the rise

Mainframe systems executive Richard Pape from IBM Asia-Pacific wrote in an email interview that IBM is "witnessing a resurgence in the mainframe." The catalyst appears to be companies facing space and power constrains in the data centers. Indeed, global mainframe revenues are on the increase, with business-intelligence applications being one of the areas that the mainframe platform complements well. Mission-critical, high-volume transactional services, such as those encountered in the financial industry, continue to favor the mainframe as well.

While modern mainframe architectures do come with advanced partitioning techniques and can host multiple operating systems, its downfall could well be something more mundane. In a nutshell, Pape noted: "There are simply not enough young, bright people wanting to learn mainframe skills over PHP, Java, Flash and other 'hip' Web 2.0 technologies."

For more about the venerable mainframe:
- check out this ZDNet article