There is successful tech in the “tech that does what says on the box” and in “achieves good market fit”.
A lot of their stuff does 1, but not 2.
And their mainframes, underhyped to the extreme, that more or less still run the world.
A lot of their stuff does 1, but not 2.
And their mainframes, underhyped to the extreme, that more or less still run the world.
More or less, but less and less. Many a bank, airline, etc. has had or has or will have a "digital transformation"/move to cloud/rewrite apps/websites to actually be usable/etc. project to switch away from legacy stuff handicapping them to a more modern leaner tech stack. Mostly because they got shown by newer, leaner competition how it's done (neobanks, low-cost airlines) so finally there is some incentive. And of course the added benefits of commodity hardware (as a Service) being much more easily replaceable and scalable. If you're a big bank/airline, why would you spend billions on mainframes from a single vendor you're beholden to, with all the staffing problems (nobody knows this stuff so hiring is a nightmare), specced for the highest possible load you might get? Instead of throwing it on AWS which "everyone" knows and can scale up/down based on demand. Migrating isn't easy or cheap, but it makes so much sense.
Two I can think of: SABRE and the IRS. See more here: https://www.nextgov.com/cxo-briefing/2016/05/10-oldest-it-sy...
Personally I have a ton of respect for production systems that can be scaled in place for 50 years. But I don't have any interest in learning to run IBM mainframes or code for them- I'm preparing for lots of contract work in 2037.
And the airlines, and the logistics companies