"Legacy cruft" can be code that's been providing business value for 50 or more years. The mainframe may be expensive, and IBM may love to nickel-and-dime you fo

"Legacy cruft" can be code that's been providing business value for 50 or more years. The mainframe may be expensive, and IBM may love to nickel-and-dime you for every available feature, but it might still make business sense to keep using it. What's the point in rewriting all your code to move it off the mainframe if that will cost twenty times as much as maintaining the existing code while vastly increasing risk? While you may achieve cost savings by moving off the mainframe, they might take so long to accrue that it doesn't make business sense.