Weirdly, the mainframe business shows no sign of declining, despite the low cost and high power of commodity PC hardware. However, many of the old mainframe jocks are dying or retiring, leaving mainframe-dependents businesses without enough techs. All those Y2K hackers who came out of retirement to fix the Big Iron might find themselves in a seller's market for their retirement years — I can just see it now, AARP-members in mobile homes cruising America's highways, relaxing in campgrounds five days a week and then spending a couple days in some company's data-center beating the mainframes into submission.
Companies need to better understand how to compensate for diminishing mainframe skills. Systems that offer heterogeneous management across mixed environments can eliminate the complexities traditionally associated with managing the mainframe. That makes it possible to work across both mainframe and distributed environments, regardless of one's database knowledge.
But time is slipping away. We are at a critical junction, as mainframe talent is quickly disappearing. Converting data from these systems requires a significant amount of time and a substantial monetary commitment. Often, such conversion is just not a viable option.