4 ms·

> So, that 80-90% of the Fortune 500 is really just 1000 mainframes total. Generously, if every Fortune 500 had a pair in each geography (roughly EU, Americas,

> So, that 80-90% of the Fortune 500 is really just 1000 mainframes total. Generously, if every Fortune 500 had a pair in each geography (roughly EU, Americas, Asia for big corps), that ends up being 6, so 3000 globally, in production. As others have posted, your estimates are WILDLY off. First, fortune 500 companies dont own "two" mainframes, but a LOT more. Next, many non-F500 companies own a lot of them as well. Years ago I worked for a local cable company in Canada. Not a "F500" company, owned at least two mainframes for the "head office" and each different 'subdivision' owned their own mainframe. > Really just 1000 mainframes total. I'd be willing to bet that any major city has more within its borders.

lowken 4y ago
I don't know if iSeries (AS/400) counts as Mainframe... But the software stack is similar and I know that hundreds (if not thousands) of casinos run old Main Frame era software.
- 0x445442 4y ago
  You can add just about every auto parts retail store to that list.
- bob1029 4y ago
  Lots of community banks & credit unions run on top of iSeries right now too.
- warrenm 4y ago
  AS/400 was retired in 2013 And they're minicomputers, not mainframes :)
  - lowken 4y ago
    The software stack is very similar...
warrenm 4y ago
Even if OP's estimates are "WILDLY off", there still aren't many out there Multiply his estimate to 1000 per F500 company ... that's only half a million Put a pair in every major geography ... that's only 5,000,000 And, for kicks and giggles, multiply by another 10 for funzies That 50,000,000 Yes, it's "a lot" ... but it's nothing compared to commodity hardware According to a quick web search, Google alone had in excess of 1,000,000 x86 servers about a decade ago That's one (large) company I've worked with myriad companies who're running 10s or 100s of 1000s of x86 servers (let alone x86 desktops/workstations/laptops) - with nary a mainframe in sight (or maybe a couple ... which is on the order of "none" next to 100s of 1000s or millions of x86 boxes) Per Microsoft [0], there are 1.4 billion Windows 10 and 11 devices (yes, I know that's not a server count, but it speaks to the orders of magnitude difference between x86 devices and mainframes ...even with my generous estimates posted above) ----------- [0] https://news.microsoft.com/bythenumbers/en/windowsdevices https://news.microsoft.com/bythenumbers/en/windowsdevices
- dghlsakjg 4y ago
  The flip side of that is that commodity hardware runs commodity software. It’s entirely possible to run a very large company without having any bespoke software. Mainframes on the other hand or more likely than not to have software that only runs on a handful of machines at most. So number of machines is not a good proxy for amount of software written. On the other hand I’ve never touched a mainframe so it’s all speculation…
  - warrenm 4y ago
    >It’s entirely possible to run a very large company without having any bespoke software. I find that claim remarkably improbable - the overwhelming majority of all code written is for in-house business tasks
  - warrenm 4y ago
    >So number of machines is not a good proxy for amount of software written. It is a good proxy for the relative need of developers, however - with billions of x86 devices out there vs max a couple-few million mainframes...the scale of need is just wildly different
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

lowken 4y ago

I don't know if iSeries (AS/400) counts as Mainframe... But the software stack is similar and I know that hundreds (if not thousands) of casinos run old Main Frame era software.

0x445442 4y ago
You can add just about every auto parts retail store to that list.
bob1029 4y ago
Lots of community banks & credit unions run on top of iSeries right now too.
warrenm 4y ago
AS/400 was retired in 2013 And they're minicomputers, not mainframes :)
- lowken 4y ago
  The software stack is very similar...

warrenm 4y ago

Even if OP's estimates are "WILDLY off", there still aren't many out there Multiply his estimate to 1000 per F500 company ... that's only half a million Put a pair in every major geography ... that's only 5,000,000 And, for kicks and giggles, multiply by another 10 for funzies That 50,000,000 Yes, it's "a lot" ... but it's nothing compared to commodity hardware According to a quick web search, Google alone had in excess of 1,000,000 x86 servers about a decade ago That's one (large) company I've worked with myriad companies who're running 10s or 100s of 1000s of x86 servers (let alone x86 desktops/workstations/laptops) - with nary a mainframe in sight (or maybe a couple ... which is on the order of "none" next to 100s of 1000s or millions of x86 boxes) Per Microsoft [0], there are 1.4 billion Windows 10 and 11 devices (yes, I know that's not a server count, but it speaks to the orders of magnitude difference between x86 devices and mainframes ...even with my generous estimates posted above) ----------- [0] https://news.microsoft.com/bythenumbers/en/windowsdevices https://news.microsoft.com/bythenumbers/en/windowsdevices

dghlsakjg 4y ago
The flip side of that is that commodity hardware runs commodity software. It’s entirely possible to run a very large company without having any bespoke software. Mainframes on the other hand or more likely than not to have software that only runs on a handful of machines at most. So number of machines is not a good proxy for amount of software written. On the other hand I’ve never touched a mainframe so it’s all speculation…
- warrenm 4y ago
  >It’s entirely possible to run a very large company without having any bespoke software. I find that claim remarkably improbable - the overwhelming majority of all code written is for in-house business tasks
- warrenm 4y ago
  >So number of machines is not a good proxy for amount of software written. It is a good proxy for the relative need of developers, however - with billions of x86 devices out there vs max a couple-few million mainframes...the scale of need is just wildly different

deleted 4y ago

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