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I feel like a niche mainframe platform is hardly comparable. You could as easily say that pencils sold today still support writing ones and zeros on paper. For

by ebg13 8y ago

I feel like a niche mainframe platform is hardly comparable. You could as easily say that pencils sold today still support writing ones and zeros on paper. For me, a certain threshold of graphics and networking modernity that began to take shape around 1998 is needed to satisfy this exercise. I mean, don't get me wrong, 55 years is no slouch, but 360 mainframe software used today feels archaic and Win32 software used today feels exactly the same as it did when it was new. The paradigm of the mainframe ended when the paradigm of the personal computer began. How many System Z mainframes are sold today?

nostrademons 8y ago
That's likely a function of when you came of age. (FWIW, I also came of age in the late 90s, and a Win98-style GUI feels perfectly natural to me.) Folks who were working with computers in the 70s are perfectly comfortable with green-screen terminals. Kids who grow up today think anything that doesn't look like either a mobile app or a Bootstrap webpage is archaic. System Z revenue was up 70% in 2017, to nearly $3B/quarter [1]. That's pretty appreciable for any product. The PC market is definitely bigger, but it's on the same order of magnitude as brand-name PC manufacturers. Acer, for example, makes about $2B/quarter [2], while Apple makes about $8B/quarter from Macs [3][4] [1] https://www.itjungle.com/2018/01/22/ibms-systems-group-financial-rebound/ https://www.itjungle.com/2018/01/22/ibms-systems-group-finan... [2] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/2353.TW/financials?p=2353.TW https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/2353.TW/financials?p=2353.TW (30 TWD = 1 USD) [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/382260/segments-share-revenue-of-apple/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/382260/segments-share-re... [4] https://9to5mac.com/2018/11/01/apple-earnings-fy18-q4/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/11/01/apple-earnings-fy18-q4/

by ebg13 8y ago

nostrademons 8y ago

That's likely a function of when you came of age. (FWIW, I also came of age in the late 90s, and a Win98-style GUI feels perfectly natural to me.) Folks who were working with computers in the 70s are perfectly comfortable with green-screen terminals. Kids who grow up today think anything that doesn't look like either a mobile app or a Bootstrap webpage is archaic. System Z revenue was up 70% in 2017, to nearly $3B/quarter [1]. That's pretty appreciable for any product. The PC market is definitely bigger, but it's on the same order of magnitude as brand-name PC manufacturers. Acer, for example, makes about $2B/quarter [2], while Apple makes about $8B/quarter from Macs [3][4] [1] https://www.itjungle.com/2018/01/22/ibms-systems-group-financial-rebound/ https://www.itjungle.com/2018/01/22/ibms-systems-group-finan... [2] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/2353.TW/financials?p=2353.TW https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/2353.TW/financials?p=2353.TW (30 TWD = 1 USD) [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/382260/segments-share-revenue-of-apple/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/382260/segments-share-re... [4] https://9to5mac.com/2018/11/01/apple-earnings-fy18-q4/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/11/01/apple-earnings-fy18-q4/