but a smart marketing strategy. It'll certainly get them a bunch of attention from the mainframe community and a decent number of engagements. Can you ping them for a follow-up to see if their efforts actually pay off for users or if they're just blowing smoke. If it works, I imagine they'd be more than happy to provide details.....if it doesn't, then you'll probably never hear from them again It will also be interesting to see if IBM responds, although, on mainframe SW costs, much of it arises from non-IBM sources (CA, Compuware, etc.) who will defend their God given right to charge for each and every MIP - regardless of whether their SW is running on those MIPs or not - to the death.

"In the first stage, Macro 4 comes in with its experts and does a performance analysis on the machine for a fee. The amount of this fee has not been revealed yet, but we this being mainframe shops, it is probably not a small fee. Here's the bet: Macro 4 is so sure it can find inefficiencies in mainframe applications that it will wager it can free up mainframe processing capacity worth at least double that of the consulting engagement fee. If Macro 4's hotshots fail, they will do the work for free."

In the first stage, sensitive proprietary data is metadatamined/transferred to a Proxy System [in this case, a Macro 4 operation] Better Applicational Use of Proprietary Data increases Efficiency rather than just discovering any Inefficiency/Internal Intellectual Property Deficit. Done well, it is a Hydra Headed Sugar Daddy SAP Trojan injected Directly into the Mainstream/Heart of a Business. And whether it remains Benign and Host Business Aligned and Orientated or is tempted to Insider Trade Malignancy with Pilfered Phished Phorms, in Search of Selfish Personal Glory and Dodgy Enrichment, is always going to be a Hanging Question.

To charge a fee and guarantee twice its value returned, in return for access to a business's tricky problems/inefficiencies, is a small price to pay to lose/sell company methodology and future potential. And what do you think would be the Likelihood of any fee being returned for beta work which gains access to head office thinking?

That is not to say that every firm in the Improvement Game, is a Predatory Shark, just that the SMARTer Ones can Recognise them, simply by Listening to their Actions/Proposals.

IT's AIJungle, out there. Take Care.

seriously folks, you're not trying hard enough.

Evolution really needs to play out a little faster in the data centre.

...who will come along after Macro 4 and show you how you can port your applications to half a dozen x86 servers and save $4 million a year.