United Kingdom: Technology Predictions - TMT Trends 2008 - Part 1
January 24, 2008 (Deloitte TMT Industry Group)
Just 10 years ago, the consensus was that the mainframe was doomed to extinction. Yet, over the past few years mainframes have been going from strength to strength. In 2008, this trend seems set to continue. The installed base of mainframes is rising at about 5 percent a year. Every day in 2008, mainframes are expected to process more than 30 billion transactions, representing 70 percent of the world’s business data. While the mainframe has proven to be resilient, the workforce appears not to be. In 2008, while the importance of mainframes may rise, the number of staff skilled in their maintenance and development may fall. What used to be regarded as legacy may then, as has happened with mainframe computers, become viewed as the way of the future. Enterprises, as well as the industry that supplies them, should review their long-term talent requirements regularly. There are several potential approaches for dealing with talent scarcity. One would be to migrate applications away from a platform with a skills pool that appears to be poor. But this is not always feasible. A second approach would be to train staff. A third approach could to be to make the underlying technology easier to use.
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