RE: IBM a personal comment -- MIDRANGE-L

Part of that is also the declining enrollment for those classes, which
is probably as a result of decreasing demand for iSeries programmers. I
developed the AS/400 curriculum for a community college in mid-Michigan.
We were going gangbusters in the mid 80 to early 90s...classes were
full...we were teaching RPG and Operations and tons of good
classes...even had a distance learning program over the Internet. But
then the market started drying up...AS/400 programmers weren't much in
demand, so classes were cancelled and fewer offered in subsequent
terms. Eventually the program just stopped...while the C++ and Java and
Microsoft Office product classes were full. The college has a mission to
meet the needs of the community and they were doing that.

Quick search on Monster...iSeries OR AS/400 - 14 hits; Java - 182 hits;
java and (iseries or AS/400) - 0 hits.

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: IBM a personal comment
> From: "Shields, Ken" <kenshields@xxxxxxx>
> Date: Mon, January 31, 2005 10:22 am
> To: "Midrange Mailing LIst (E-mail)" <Midrange-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Group Hi
> 
>       I recently discovered that IBM , out of the goodness of their hearts 
> made a large contribution of software to a local 
>       College.(There was probably some tax implications here)
>       The College has gone on to become a full fledged University, and 
> Institute of Technology, which for the purpose 
>       of this writing will be unnamed
> 
>       To this date, no courses in that E-Commerce software have been 
> initiated by the Institute. I imagine the reason 
>       given , is lack of attendance (on the College's part), but also because 
> there probably exists no 
>       computer equipment, and CA programs , on which to test and educate the 
> student population.
>       I imagine the plan was to offer the College/University the free 
> software, and then have THEM purchase the 
>       /400...ISeries base to initiate the courses
>       That last step probably was outside the realm of the College's budget 
> (just surmising here)
>       To be fair, there are other Colleges in the area which offer /400 
> classes , but are not current and again, they too
>       cancel classes because of lack of demand. (I wonder why?..)
> 
>       My personal feeling is that IBM will continue to lose the  market 
> share, NOT because they make an inferior product,
>       but because they are not getting proactively involved in the education 
> of our students.
>       I'll wager most graduates are quite converse with Microsoft software 
> and .NET, but haven't a clue about IBM 's 
>       offerings.
>       And just whose software and world will these budding graduates look to 
> in the future?
>       
>       The old adage " You have to spend money to make money", is no more self 
> evident than in this very critical area
>       of people's lives.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Ken Shields
> PPG Canada Inc
> Ph: 905 725 1144 (326)
> Fx: 905 433 8712
> 
> 
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