Like much of the rest of the world, Japan is experiencing serious economic problems. Toyota, NEC, Hitachi, Panasonic, Sony, Mizuho Financial Group, and Honda are among the firms reporting record losses and/or (usually and) laying off thousands of workers. Japan's export-driven economy is struggling against both weak demand (at home and abroad) and a particularly strong yen.
These economic challenges certainly make working in Japan even more interesting. Our customers have always looked to reduce costs, but now there seems to be some more serious thinking about how they can improve operational efficiencies. Previously "unthinkable" structural changes are now more likely. More assumptions are questioned and rethought.
Companies are appreciating at least one unique attribute of IBM mainframes: they typically become less expensive if your business declines. That's due to something called Variable Workload License Charge (VWLC). If your transaction and batch volumes decline, you pay a lower software charge, automatically. Nothing else in IT behaves that way, so the mainframe becomes even more valuable in this environment. For this reason and several others, in both bad times and good times it's a good time to have at least one IBM mainframe.
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