Re: What's the best nation in the world? -- MIDRANGE-L

Do an IBM Search on "PIE" Partners in Education.
This has been written up occasionally in all the Midrange Trade Press.

The deal is that IBM sells a state-of-art e-server to a College, University, 
or High School at a price that looks so far below cost to the rest of us that 
we would think it was a stolen AS/400 were it not for the fact that IBM is 
doing the selling.

Also, IBM provides OS/400 FOR FREE & 
all new versions of OS/400 FOR FREE &
all IBM tech support of OS/400 FOR FREE

Theory being IBM wants the kids to be learning the LATEST VERSION & not have 
the institution refrain from installing latest version for financial reasons 
... of course this also tempts them to load a fully loaded version of OS/400 
features, which means that the hardware requirements are higher than if they 
went with a minimal OS/400 version.

The PIE package comes with an IBM reccommended curriculum of all the latest 
hot stuff ... how to work DB/2 in an e-world, everything you need to know for 
a career in the midrange world ... this curriculum is regularly updated in 
consultation with co-sponsors of the education program in the community where 
the campus is located, because the Partners are going to be offering jobs to 
graduates of the classes.

In addition IBM Education offers summer classes at Rochester for the faculty 
of PIE institutions FOR FREE
This is like the classes that regular IBM customers shell out $2,000 a week 
for
The only stuff that the teachers or their sponsors have to pay for is 
transportation to & from IBM Rochester, lodging while there, and 
transportation between the lodging & IBM Teaching location, and the usual 
sundry expenses when traveling away from home
but as we who have gone to the $2,000 classes know, that there are all kinds 
of ways to work things through IBM Education contacts so that
Air Fare is the lowest available ... I have gone 1,000 miles on under $200 
round trip via IBM Air
Lodging is far below standards for the metropolis ... I remember checking out 
of one hotel after staying there just over a week at $65.00 per nite when the 
going rate is over $250.00 per nite & the check out clerk asked "WHO DID YOU 
HAVE TO KNOW TO GET THAT RATE?"  Well the answer is that IBM or its local 
teach location sends all its students to certain hotels that offer IBM sweet 
deals - of course a lot of people just look at the stuff from the IBM web 
site & do not dig down to find these deals

If you have been to COMMON, IBM Technical Conferences, Midrange Conventions & 
User Groups, IBM Classes etc, you know that there is great value in putting 
people into a classroom together who have similar needs & interests.  It 
foments discussion & students with solutions to other students challenges.

I can imagine that if you have class size of say 50 students who are faculty 
from institutions across the nation learning how to teach midrange stuff  & 
if there are several classes next to each other going concurrently, this 
becomes like a midrange teacher's convention with great value in their 
meeting with each other to discuss common challenges.

If you are involved with an institution that wants to teach IBM e-server know 
how, you owe it to the long term future of that effort to check out PIE.  
There may be a lag time getting it setup so that you will not be ready in 
time to use it in the next school year, but long term, this approach has got 
to be cost effective & always have access to expertise on a state-of-art 
curriculum.

And did I forget to mention costs of finding the best state-of-art text books?

The only down side I see is if your educational institution is rather distant 
from Rochester & your nation does not have a comparable PIE.

MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)
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