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IBM celebrated the 50th anniversary of the mainframe last year – and new research from Compuware reveals the technology is still as important as ever for CIOs.

The research, which polled 350 enterprise CIOs, found almost nine in 10 (88%) see the mainframe as a “key business asset over the next decade”, while a similar number (89%) see mainframe code as “valuable corporate intellectual property” and four in five (78%) believe it is a “key enabler of innovation”.

As William Rabie, head of cloud EMEA and APAC at iland wrote in this publication earlier this month, client-server technology never completely replaced the mainframe. Even though it’s very much a legacy technology, it still has its place in industries such as banking and defence.

It’s clear that CIOs see the mainframe playing a key role in the future of the digital enterprise, there are various concerns related to its development. As the senior platform professionals retire and leave the business, who will step up and deal with the mainframe in their place? Three quarters (75%) of CIOs admit that distributed app developers have little understanding of the mainframe, and a similar figure (70%) are concerned a lack of documentation will create risk in the company.

39% of respondents said they had no explicit plans for addressing shortages in their organisation for mainframe developers. So who is going to fill the gap? Compuware CEO Chris O’Malley is concerned at the results’ findings, comparing the situation to the Millennium Bug.

“CIOs clearly need to re-prioritise investments in the mainframe in order to maximise the value IT delivers to the business and to effectively mitigate the risk associated with the generational shift in IT staffing,” he said. “Not since Y2K has the mainframe required as much CIO attention and direct involvement.

“Hope is never a good mainframe strategy,” he added.