Surrey helps IBM reach milestone
Thursday 28 February 2008
IBM recently announced a milestone in the number of colleges and universities globally that are actively teaching and developing mainframe courses and accredited certificates through its Academic Initiative for System z.
The University of Surrey is one of the most recent universities, and the first in the UK, to run a mainframe-based curriculum, helping to push the number over 400.
IBM’s Academic Initiative, launched in 2004, offers a wide range of technology education related to IBM’s deep technology history.
System z roundtables on campus connect the mainframe community with academia – bringing IBM clients and Business Partners on campus together with IBM to talk about large systems thinking and the mainframe.
Steve Schneider, Professor of Computing and Head of Department at Surrey comments: "The University of Surrey's new large enterprise systems curriculum has generated a great deal of interest from our students. The innovations IBM has introduced to the mainframe platform are the key reason for this immense popularity. Our students are telling us two things: they are highly enthusiastic about mainframe-related career opportunities, and they believe the mainframe platform has a tremendous future as it continues to evolve."
At current count, nearly 50,000 students worldwide have taken large enterprise or mainframe specific courses since 2004 at colleges and universities. The students have either graduated with degrees in Information Systems or Computer Science with a concentration on large enterprise or mainframe, or completed mainframe-specific courses at the school, in order to prepare for careers with Fortune 1000 companies.
Michael Bliss, Director, System z Technical Support and Academic Initiative for System z, comments: "As enterprise customers are looking to reduce costs associated with their massive infrastructure footprint and ensure five nines of security – the mainframe is the only single technology that can be implemented now that can have an immediate impact. We’re seeing strong demand for mainframe-skilled students from businesses, governments, and other institutions and through the Academic Initiative for System z programme – having a global pool of students and experts skilled on the mainframe is locked in for decades to come."
The news coincides with IBM’s announcement of the world’s most powerful computer, the IBM System z10 Enterprise Class.
Media Enquiries
Peter La, Press Office at the University of Surrey, Tel: +44 (0)1483 689191, or Email mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk