IBM's Academic Initiative

[MCWebsite.Staff]

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[Guest.Visitor]

IBM's Academic Initiative

** This thread discusses the article: IBM's Academic Initiative **
Nice job on the article Tom,(as usual). As I was reading your comments about students deciding what to do with their curriculum hours when taxed with so many decisions about what to take today in the computer field; I was trying to remember the real AGEs of the other environments you mentioned... (the perception some have that Windows and Unix are "newer" technologies therefore must take those courses). OS/400 was born in 1988. I think Windows was born in 1981 and UNIX is almost my age, as it was born in the 50's! Of course all three have evolved.. but if we really think about it, which one is the youngster? ;-) Just worth pondering. Thanks Tom.

[H.Boldt]

IBM's Academic Initiative

** This thread discusses the article: IBM's Academic Initiative **
OS/400 was the direct successor to CPF which ran on the S/38. CPF goes back to about 1979. The first Unix was released in the early 1970's. But of course, "Unix" is now largely irrelevant, now largely supplanted by other compatible O/S's like AIX (1990), Linux (1991) and FreeBSD (1993). Here is a nice history of Unix and related O/S's. Windows version 1 was released in 1985. Your point is what exactly? Cheers! Hans

[mossjm]

IBM's Academic Initiative

** This thread discusses the article: IBM's Academic Initiative **
My experience with IBM's Academic Initiatve is short lived. Most in part because they have little initiative. For example, I am taking a night class in java. I spoke with instructor about what application server we'd be working on. Instructor says we can load it up with whatever we choose. I offered to call IBM and ask if they could provide us a copy of WebSphere for educational purposes. The long run around of it was - I need to ask the department head of the school sign up on the web so they can download the software. (Like that's gonna happen!) This was it. That is the extent of their "initiative". I was offering a possible way to introduce WebSphere to students in my class. Doesn't look like their going to get it. So when another company posts an ad for a WebSphere administrator, they will find very few candidates who've ever worked with the product. IBM's actions of late seem to indicate that they don't care about small business customers. Only the very largest ones. Moreover, they also seem not to care about educating the U.S. workforce with their products since they themselves firmly believe there is already enough java talent in India and China; no need to expend precious resources in the US to educate our beloved iPod loving, video-game playing, soon-to-be degreed professionals.

[T.Stockwell]

IBM's Academic Initiative

** This thread discusses the article: IBM's Academic Initiative **
In your message you indicated that you are the student, essentially in a continuing educational class -- and it's great that you took the initiative to attempt to incorporate IBM's Academic Initiative into your classroom setting. (In your case, to get WebSphere loaded on your classroom server.) It sounds like the obstacle was that IBM wanted your department head to sign up for the download. If I'm misunderstanding your comment, I apologize. The IBM Academic Initiative is aimed at getting curriculum and resources into the classroom, and to get professors to incorporate this curriculum into their courses. It's not about a particular product or products, but about opening up resources at the institutional level. I applaud your initiative as a student. Can you take it to the next level and make your instructor aware of these new opportunities? Can you point him to this article and open the discussion with him about how to make it happen? I will forward your comment directly to the individuals with whom I've dealt at the IBM Academic Initiative. I think if we work together, maybe we can push the envelope towards resolving this. This initiative is new. It's new within IBM as well. However, in speaking with Mark Shearer (General Manager of System i) it's a significant part of the overall strategy, and they are at the beginning of this strategy. Within this strategy, it doesn't matter to them if the institution is large or small: They just need to get involved to make virtual resources and curriculum available. Let me know how I can help you get what your school needs? Thomas M. Stockwell Editor in Chief MC Press Online, LP tstockwell@mcpressonline.com

[Guest.Visitor]

IBM's Academic Initiative

** This thread discusses the article: IBM's Academic Initiative **
The labor pool. I recently had the opportunity to listen to a colleague reflect upon his recent user's-group meeting. He was lamenting over the observations made about the age of the group in general and about what seemed to be on the forefront of their collective minds. As he moved about the assembly, he would approach a group here and there hoping to participate in a technically oriented discussion about the iSeries, Java, RPG-IV, WebSphere, etc. What he discovered instead was that each group was engaged in topics pertaining to early retirement, the RV just purchased to use to see the country in, the grandkids, family pictures, 401k investing strategies; everything was being discussed except those technical topics. For my colleague and myself, the experience was painting a clear picture that the domestic workforce making a living off of this machine is growing long in the tooth and that there is very little new blood (and enthusiasm) to champion its virtues. The other message was that the group is just biding their time to when they don't have to work anymore and there is little interest in learning anything new, i.e. Java, WebSphere, etc. After all, whole systems can be created by using only DDS, CL and RPG-IV, so what else is there to know, right? And don't think management doesn't know this, either. From their magazine-oriented perspective, that older workforce is not cheap. (Enter outsourcing.) They can see that while the machine is solid as a rock, the work pool from which to draw resources is expensive and getting somewhat shallower. Without outsourcing (and I am no champion of that version of brain drain) companies today may be hard-pressed to be able to keep the machine regardless of how robust it is. The goal of every company is to make money and margins being what they are, any leap in pay scale only makes a measurable profit harder to come by. If that weren't enough to make a bad situation worse, RPG is not taught in schools today to the same degree as it once was. Even if a class could be found, the idea of a young student wanting to enroll in the course seems a little far-fetched. It would be tantamount to taking a course to learn to use the slide rule, which is still around somewhere I'm sure, but why use one? From the student's perspective it doesn't make sense to use limited time and resources to learn a discipline which may not be readily applied, or, generate any income. The full rant is here:

[R.Daugherty]

IBM's Academic Initiative

** This thread discusses the article: IBM's Academic Initiative **
The only thing getting long in the tooth is this pile of crap you keep cutting and pasting in here. rd

[Guest.Visitor]

IBM's Academic Initiative

** This thread discusses the article: IBM's Academic Initiative **
What a nice, intellectually loaded comment. I suppose it only reflects your ability to understand what I am saying - simply this - I HAVE TOUCHED ON THIS TOPIC BEFORE AND HERE IT IS. Get it? Oh, I suppose you will cite the negative overtones of what I wrote about our industry regarding the current state of the IBM iSeries development community and that I should take a more positive view. But you see, as long as IBM fails to effectivly compete with network-centric mindsets coming out of colleges these days and as long as I make a living in this undustry, I retain the right to slam IBM for their anemic efforts to turn around dwindling machine sales and raise market awareness. But if you did, you would again miss the point. I didn't create the situation, I'm just stating what should be obvious to any thinking person. I suppose the same could be said about Thomas Stockwell's article. He's writting about the same dynamics in our industry today but it is couched differently. But, I supposed you missed that point, too. Have a great day, and keep those emotionally-laden comments coming in. (Psst. It only serves to weaken your position.)

[J.Pluta]

IBM's Academic Initiative

** This thread discusses the article: IBM's Academic Initiative **
Ralph, I deleted my earlier comment, but based on the most recent post, I'm reinstating it: DFTT I am now at the point where I almost unilaterally avoid commenting (or even reading) on anonymous posts or posts from people with handles. I've found that the whole concept of anonymous posting leads to people being a lot less civil than they would be otherwise. I wandered over to "Javaboy's" blog, and found pretty much what I thought I would find: scathing rhetoric with defamatory and insulting words (he calls members of the industry a name used in polite conversation to refer to small felines). Joe