The Bloor Perspective: work-life balance, mainframes and Factiva

While some people may thrive on stress, most of us don't. Yet with the need to do more with less facing many companies these days the only way many cope is by piling the stress onto the workforce.

The IT industry is perhaps most guilty of this approach as it is all too easy to get into a conversation with peers based on the war stories of the number of hours worked and the number of hours sleep lost. While this may appeal to one's sense of bravado, the reality is that it's not clever and it's not healthy.

Last week was National Work-Life Balance Week. You didn't know? You were too busy to notice. Shame. It's very important stuff that some companies have recognised as being critical to human resource management. The Work Life Balance is the name given to the campaign.

The whole idea is to consider different working practices that can be deployed in an organisation so business benefit can be derived from staff being happier, easier to recruit and less likely to leave. Other benefits include reduced levels of sickness through less stress, increased loyalty and, most importantly, productivity.

One of the most popular ways to gain some work-life balance is through home working - the technology is there, all it takes is for the company to give the green light and most of us would be sitting in our spare bedrooms tomorrow.

Another is flexible working hours. This sort of thing doesn't have to be the preserve of call centre staff on a shift pattern - if it is realistic and managed, it can work for other areas of the organisation too.

Another is that of job sharing - though less hours means less money.

Of course, the biggest barrier to this happening is your employer but if enough people try to make a difference, things will change eventually. There are enough surveys coming out declaring the benefits of a work-life balance that eventually we may see the destruction of the traditional work place and a better life for all of us.

*Mainframes - just big and expensive?*

Ask almost anyone in computing what characteristics they think of when mainframe is mentioned and the initial response often includes the words big, expensive and complex. Even to those who work with them, mainframes have an involuntary connection with big tin and high cost, high maintenance working. In reality the truth today is somewhat different.

Looking at 'big', it is certainly true mainframes can scale to be impressively huge in terms of the workload they carry and number of users and applications that can be supported. However, the launch in the last year of IBM's z/800 server means mainframes now start at a size roughly equivalent to just 20 Intel-based servers.

When it comes to considering whether mainframe computers are 'expensive' one can get involved in some very complex arguments about total cost of ownership (TCO). Over the years many studies have demonstrated it can be much more cost effective to manage a small number of large computers rather than managing large numbers of small systems, especially when the systems are in a widely distributed environment.

Irrespective of the TCO arguments, small mainframe systems can be very cost effective and in no way deserve to be labelled expensive. For example, in some situations it is possible to obtain operating systems licenses for some z/800 servers for only a few thousand pounds while the cost of licensing many applications can be considerably lower on a mainframe than the equivalent price on a large number of smaller servers. The availability of Linux and open source software to run on mainframes is another driver that demonstrates the mainframe is still evolving and moving forward.

On the question of complexity, it is true administrators of mainframe computers do require specialist skills but the same is true of every platform. Indeed, as with all computer technologies, mainframes today come with software tools that help ease the daily management burden and, given the high levels of resilience the platform possesses, these servers can be expected to run and run.

Mainframes today can offer solutions to surprisingly small workloads while retaining the capability to scale up to largest size possible. However, the reliability characteristics and the comparative ease of recoverability of systems built on mainframe architecture have not been compromised and it should be recognised mainframe technology is probably the most secure of any computing platform in use.

It is clear the mainframe is not yesterday's technology but a versatile, affordable, scaleable server that offers almost unparalleled reliability and security in a small footprint. Not every system can exploit the mainframe's characteristics but these servers have a role to play today and for the foreseeable future.

*Just the facts*

Anyone logging on to the internet to do some research, whether business, personal or academic, will have quickly become lost in the results of their search engine of choice. While Google is probably the leading tool at the moment, it can still bring back hundreds of results which take time to wade through.

Fortunately, Factiva, a joint venture between leading information providers Dow Jones and Reuters, has the content and technology to put the right information in your hands. The company is the leading provider of desktop business information with a customer base made up of 84 per cent of the Global 500. And with offices in 28 countries, the company is able to overcome the all important language barrier to make sure you are reading the same news as your counterparts on the other side of the world.

On the content side of things, the company takes business information from 8,000 sources in 118 counties and in 22 languages. From the technology perspective it has developed its own solution to enable customers to integrate Factiva content into their own systems. It is this combination of content and technology that gives Factiva a successful business model with over 1.5 million paying subscribers.

If that isn't enough then the company has developed its own technology into tools that are available to customers including Factiva Fusion, Developers Kit and Select that provide one stop repositories for corporate intranets, web services and XML-based feeds respectively.
So, as many companies look for competitive advantage in the recovering economy, it is time to start looking at the use of information from external sources for an invaluable insight into your customers and your competitors.

**Bloor Research is a leading independent analyst organisation in Europe. You can find out more at http://www.bloor-research.com or by emailing mail@bloor-research.com .