RE: IBM a personal comment

["Shields, Ken" <kenshields@xxxxxxx>]

        Jack, thank you for your enthusiasm, but I really think it's somewhat 
mis-placed.
        Most of us poor IT workers, and businesses specializing in the IBM mid 
range field are generally too tired when 
        we get home, to go out and 'volunteer' our time to teach the uneducated 
masses.

        If in fact, IBM is intrinsically what you say they are :
        "a bunch of haughty big elephants eating tall grass", then I suspect 
the Mid range 
        division of IBM is as doomed as their pc business.
        
        The business of marketing, training, and helping to educate people in 
this highly 
        competitive computer world of ours, rests to a large degree on the 
people who 
        design and sell the software, and the educational institutions that 
also profit from
        that software.
        IMHO, this important responsibility of their business is being 
overlooked. If the reason 
        they give is non profitability, then they are very short sighted.
        
        Of course, in the business world, we too have a responsibility to train 
and educate
        the business community that uses the business systems we design and 
build for them,
        but we have to know where to draw the line.
        
        If you burn out, trying to fill a void they created, then your time is 
free.
Ken