RE: History repeats itself

Pat,

It has been my experience that the pendulum continues to go back and forth
every few years or so.  It used to be that everyone had a centralized
system.  Then people started complaining about the "glass house" mentality
and the move to decentralize became hot.  Then when people started having
problems managing the "server farms", they start talking about combining
systems again.

I guess it's a sign of my having been around the block a few times, but I
see this pendulum phenomenon everywhere I look.  Your timeshare/ASP question
is just another example.  My first computer job was in a service bureau;
long ago closed down.  The best thing that we as developers can do is to
always assume that the current "hot" technology will not remain that way for
long, and to assume that change is inevitable.

William K. Reger
Senior Project Manager
Levitz Furniture Corporation
Phone:  (561) 994-5114
E-mail:  breger@levitz.com <mailto:breger@levitz.com> 

                -----Original Message-----
                From:   Pat Barber [mailto:mboceanside@worldnet.att.net]
                Sent:   Tuesday, March 14, 2000 1:30 PM
                To:     MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
                Subject:        History repeats itself

                This was shared with me today by an unnamed mass mailer:

                AVANADE DEAL: MICROSOFT ENTERS FOR-PROFIT SERVICES BUSINESS
(COMPUTER
                RESELLER NEWS)  
                Microsoft Corp.'s $1 billion foray into the technology
services business
                is not just bad news for IBM Global Services, but for the
software
                giant's channel as well, industry observers predict. 

                Will somebody help me out here ???

                Isn't "time sharing" and "service bureau" really old extinct
terms that
                we used back in the "old" days(1970/80) ????

                It apparently has been renamed !! and now because we will
access the 
                server/mainframe/computer/data center from the "web" they
want to 
                call it somthing else.... I feel like I'm in a time warp
here recently, 
                but hey... they are calling it somthing new & different
(ASP's or TSB)
                but it sure does smell like the same old thing..... Who is
sitting
                around
                dreaming this stuff up at night ????
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