What were the top 10 mainframe companies of old times.

[Aarohi Saxena]

Hi,

I have been working on mainframe for some time. And would like to know what were say top 5-10 mainframe companies during the time when mainframe were at peak in 1980s? Does anyone here some information on them and do those companies exist today too?

[Anuj Dhawan]

Some which I can think of, are:

IBM: https://www.ibm.com/in-en/
CA: https://www.ca.com/us.html
BMC: http://www.bmcsoftware.in/
Companies supporting configuration management tools were also popular. Like Panvalet, read more here: viewtopic.php?f=100&t=330&p=865&hilit=panvalet#p865

[enrico-sorichetti]

probably the TS wants to know about hardware

[Anuj Dhawan]

Possibly. Not sure though, took the benefit of doubt!

[Aarohi Saxena]

I wanted to know both hardware and software. I want to make a decision that which company is better to work with? Like the companies for J P Morgan chase which make us of mainframes or the companies like BMC, CA which make the products to be used on mainframes.

[Robert Sample]

And would like to know what were say top 5-10 mainframe companies during the time when mainframe were at peak in 1980s?

Saying the mainframe peaked in the 1980s is a debatable point. In the late 1960's, IBM had 7 competitors in the mainframe market (the term was IBM and the 7 dwarfs): Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, Honeywell, RCA, General Electric. By the early 1970's, RCA and General Electric were no longer in the mainframe market and the remaining companies were referred to as BUNCH (from their initials). There were also in this time frame through the 1980's mainframes sold by Scientific Data, Cray, Amdahl, and International Computers Ltd. Hitachi and Fujitsu also made mainframes that competed with IBM's offerings. HP and DEC sold minicomputers that competed with mainframes.

Working with a company like BMC or CA may be somewhat career-limiting. Mainframes are not a growing market these days; IBM is selling more processing power every year but the general understanding is that most of these sales are to companies with already established mainframes that are upgrading. Googling state of the mainframe will give you links to help you evaluate the marketplace.

[vasanthz]

"Working with a company like BMC or CA may be somewhat career-limiting."

Robert, Why do you say that?
Is it because it is hard to switch to a different company away from them?

[Robert Sample]

No, I say that because the market for mainframes is, at best, stagnant if not shrinking. Working for a company in a market that is not growing limits the opportunities a person has.

[Keval Mehta]

So what area should a senior mainframe programmer look for opportunities?

[nicc]

So what area should a senior mainframe programmer look for opportunities?

This is not your thread so do not ask questions that are not related to resolving the issue. And your question has been answered before.

[enrico-sorichetti]

topic locked, leading nowhere