Mass Exodus: Can the Next Generation Maintain the Mainframe?

by Gabriele Piccoli

This month's issue of Cutter Benchmark Review presents another great example of what we truly aim to do here -- identify and tackle emerging issues of interest to you and, using fresh data and expert contributions, develop actionable guidelines to manage them. As with most focused issues of CBR, I am not a firsthand expert on the topic. Be that as it may, I do read the press and a variety of publications and typically am familiar with emerging trends. I can say, though, that until we contacted our expert contributors for this issue, I had not thought or heard much about what is shaping up as an impending crisis in the availability of mainframe skills -- and it seems that many of our respondents hadn't grasped the potential of this problem either.