Evolving enterprise IT

I hear ya, I think! It sounds like large scale distributed computing enterprise versus centralized mainframe computer processing environment. To me, it's mostly about scale, however to the vendor sales folks, and our misguided business folks it's all about the GUI. As it stands today, I have yet seen an enterprise computing environment that can run 5 to 10 thousand batch jobs each day (not simple stuff e.g. backup/reporting), and/or 20 Customer Information/Transactions Online Systems supporting dozens of applications, and 5-10 thousand online users all under single platform. All attempts to replace even a small portion of the centralized processing environment with distributed enterprise computing results in huge outlays of money, followed by huge outlays of more money to maintain the basics of data processing standards of operation. This is just one reason why no one can get their arms around the ROI following an enterprise implementation (RIO would be my next question for those who still have their arms raised following your question on how successful their enterprise implementation went or are going). So, if I had to base my decision on which dinosaur to shoot, I would shoot the distributed computing enterprise, for mid to large scale data processing environments, and put the PC, especially MS Windows platforms, back in the home, or delegate it to small/NON critical, sensitive, or vital office duties.

Regards, Jim

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