Alive and Kicking: Making the Case for Mainframe Education

As universities continually update and assess their curriculums, mainframe computing is quite often overlooked as it is often thought of as "legacy computer." Mainframe computing appears to be either uninteresting or thought of as a computer past its prime. However, both assumptions are leading to a shortage of IS professionals in the mainframe computing area. First, most large companies such as financial institutions have relied on mainframe computing for years and as many baby boomer mainframe workers reach retirement there is a growing need to fill these positions. Additionally, there is growing interest in many companies to turn to mainframe for their computing solutions. The mainframe technology is more reliable, cost effective and in today's environmentally conscience world, mainframes provide a "green" solution to the increased computing needs of many organizations. In this paper we make the case for adding mainframe content to the IS curriculum.