7 April marked the 60th anniversary of the mainframe. It was on that day in 1964 that the System/360 was announced and the modern mainframe was born. IBM’s Big Iron, as it came to be called, took a big step ahead of the rest of the BUNCH (Burroughs, UNIVAC, NCR, Control Data Corporation, and Honeywell). The big leap of imagination was to have software that was architecturally compatible across the entire System/360 line. It was called System/360 to indicate that this new system would handle every need of every user in the business and scientific worlds because it covered all 360 degrees of the ..read more

The term disruptive technology was coined in 1995 by Clayton Christensen from Harvard Business School to refer to any innovation that significantly alters the way that consumers, industries, or businesses operate. Examples might be the arrival of the PC or the smartphone. People and businesses just do things differently now from how they used to. Currently, there are two technologies that look like they are going to be disruptive. The first is quantum computing, and the second is artificial intelligence (AI). Quantum computing’s disruptive effects are still a little way in the future, but AI i ..read more

I’m thinking in terms of personality when I ask that question. So, how would you describe your personality? The trouble with personality inventories like Cattell’s 16 PF test and similar is that they only allow for a small number of personality traits. The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is much loved by HR departments, but generally derided by the scientific community. Even Wikipedia describes it as. “a pseudoscientific self-report questionnaire that claims to indicate differing personality types. The test attempts to assign a binary value to each of four categories: introversion or extrav ..read more

The big news is that IBM has launched the Mainframe Skills Council, and they did it at the SHARE conference in Orlando. So, I hear you ask, what’s a skills council? The idea is to provide a forum where global organizations will foster a skilled, diverse, sustainable workforce for the mainframe platform. The council includes organizations that are IBM clients, IBM partners, academia, user groups, non-profits, and open communities. They will collaborate to implement mainframe skills development solutions. The initial membership includes: Academic Mainframe Consortium, Albany State University, Br ..read more

2024 is a bit of a special year here at iTech-Ed Ltd. It was our 20th anniversary on 1 February. I thought you might be interested in some of the changes that have taken place in that time. Before we set up iTech-Ed Ltd, I had worked for Xephon for 18 years. Xephon ran briefings on mainframe topics, ran surveys on mainframe topics, and created user guides to things like databases. In 1986, they decided to try a small publication by CICS professionals for CICS professionals. They called it CICS Update. It sold very well – remember there was no Google or Internet in those days, and it was diffic ..read more

iTech-Ed Ltd is pleased to announce that Trevor Eddolls, its CEO, has been recognized by IBM as an IBM Champion for 2024. Trevor was first awarded IBM Champion status in 2009.   IBM said: “On behalf of IBM, it is my great pleasure to recognize you as a returning IBM Champion in 2024. Congratulations! “We would like to thank you for your continued leadership and contributions to the IBM technology community. This recognition is awarded based on your contributions for the 2023 calendar year. The IBM Champion designation is for a 1-year term, and may be renewed by IBM annually, provided yo ..read more

iTech-Ed Ltd and Planet Mainframe are thrilled to announce a transformative merger, consolidating their assets to propel mainframe education and community support to new heights.  This strategic integration is the realization of the two companies’ recent marketing partnership that demonstrated such an amazing synergy of goal and purpose that the natural evolution was to take it to the next level and provide a more comprehensive and strategic integration of these mainframe channels with Planet Mainframe taking the lead where appropriate. From now on, iTech-Ed Ltd’s three user groups – the ..read more

As usual at this time of year, I thought I’d take a look at the previous year, with the spotlight on what was happening at iTech-Ed Ltd. The exciting news in January was that Trevor Eddolls, CEO of iTech-Ed Ltd, was recognized by IBM as a 2023 IBM Champion. IBM said: “On behalf of IBM, it is my great pleasure to recognize you as a returning IBM Champion in 2023. Congratulations! We would like to thank you for your continued leadership and contributions to the IBM technology community. This recognition is awarded based on your contributions for the 2021 calendar year.” On 10 January, the Virtu ..read more

Last time, I was talking about the sessions I attended on the Tuesday at the excellent GSE UK Conference in the first week of November. This time, I want to tell you what I learned from the sessions I attended on the Wednesday. At the 10:15 session, I was speaking in the AI stream, looking at the brain and what we mean by ordinary intelligence, before people start talking about artificial intelligence. The session was well-received, and I was asked to give it again at lunch time to some people who were unable to attend. After the coffee break, I saw IBM’s Lih M Wang’s presentation entitled, “A ..read more

With 278 sessions across 18 streams, there was a lot of education and training going on across the three and a half days of the GSE UK conference this year. I thought that I’d share some of what I learned while I was there. The first session I attended on the Tuesday was IBM Champion Henri Kuiper’s session to the AI stream entitled, “AI AI AI What Has Turing Started?”. Henri started by looking at the computers he had owned and how they had developed over the years, and then moved on to mainframe developments. He explained how the Turing test worked, and quoted John McCarthy from the 1950s sayi ..read more