Buzz words from today’s sessions
I just slipped away from the conference to pen a few notes about today here at SHARE. There are more than 1,000 attendees from all over the world and it is great to see so many familiar faces once again.
The opening address this morning was a very salutary reminder that we live in a world of constant threat to our computer systems. It isn’t just threats terrorists from without and disgruntled employees with anymore. Now we face more sophisticated challenges from cyber criminals, foreign and domestic security agencies and kids in dorm rooms. Keeping pace with those threats is probably what most IT/IS departments strive for. Clearly that is a losing proposition so we need to turn our focus on getting ahead of the threats on one hand and hardening our systems on the other hand. Its like a sinking ship: you can bail water, your can try to plug the hole but it’s best if you do both.
Today I took time to look at mainframe trends and one thing that caught my eye, and it came up in a number of sessions, was the idea that mainframe skills are not that different from the skills used, in all fields, on non-mainframe platforms. The challenge is getting developers and systems programmers to make the move to the mainframe. The advent of modern user interfaces, especially through Eclipse, is making it possible for a new migration of people to the mainframe. Here at Serena we have been long term advocates of what we call “role specific user interfaces”, by which we mean that if you are a developer your needs for interaction with a system are going to be very different than if you’re a tool administrator. Java developers need different tools to COBOL developers. The idea that “one size fits all” satisfies no one.
Today the Serena booth on the expo floor has been busier than ever. We had a huge crowd last night for the prize drawing of a Nexus 7. I expect the crowd to be just as big tonight as we give away another one.
The new ChangeMan SSM 8.4 is wowing every Systems Programmer who takes the test drive. And most are signing up for the free 90-days trial. You can sign up to.
We’re here again tonight until 7:30 pm and you’ll find us at booth #418.
I’m tweeting and following the hash tag #SHAREorg and you can follow me at @SerenaSoftware and @KevinParkerUSA.
Thanks to Tagxedo for help with the word cloud again.
