Chasing the wrong target? (was "giving an iSeries system to each college")

I can't help feeling that we're perhaps chasing the wrong target here.

As other have noted IBM are indeed taking steps to make System i available
on a "pain free" basis to schools.  They are also taking other steps to
increase the presence of "i" in the schools.

That said it may not help.  Why?  Because enrollment in science programs in
general is falling and doing so faster in Comp Sci.  So even if System i
gets more than its fair share of mindshare (and do any of us really see
anyone outspending MS in that arena?) - that share is of a shrinking pie.
Even worse than the decline in science programs is the fall off of female
applicants in the sciences (it is apparently lower now than back in the 70s
when they were actively discouraged!).  Because the "i" is a minority system
we saw the falloff in interest before others - but this is a North
America-wide problem and one that is spreading to Europe and beyond.

All of which is an introduction to the question.

If you can't rely on graduates to fill the vacancies - where are the System
i programmers of the future to come from?

Shouldn't we perhaps be looking in other directions and encouraging IBM to
do so too?

Jon Paris
Partner400

www.Partner400.com