Survey: Gov’t Prioritizes Mainframe Modernization 
Almost three-quarters of all government agencies say they expect to set aside budget in the next 6-24 months for mainframe modernization projects, according to a recent survey by Micro Focus. IDN looks at how mainframe spending is getting a priority as many government IT budgets remain flat or decline.
Almost three-quarters of all government agencies say they expect to set aside budget in the next 6-24 months for mainframe modernization projects, according to a recent survey by Micro Focus, a provider of mainframe modernization and mainframe-optimized cloud offerings.
Ironically, mainframe spending is getting a priority as many government IT budgets remain flat or decline, according to a Micro Focus executive.
“With IT spending basically flat under the proposed federal FY 2011 budget, agencies are feeling growing pressure to spend wisely and maximize return on their investments,” said Ken Powell, president of Micro Focus North America, in a statement. One notable focus will be portals, dashboards and other projects to make mainframe data more manageable and visible to end users.
“In the pursuit of Web 2.0 technologies, application modernization allows agencies to upgrade their legacy systems without replacing or rewriting core mission-critical applications, which can be expensive, risky, and time-consuming,” Powell added.
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Inside the Mainframe Modernization Survey
Among the top reasons for willingness to spend on mainframe modernization projects are: Cost savings, Improve ease-of-use, and even “business requirements.” Notably, respondents from the U.S. government’s General Services Administration (GSA) noted their intend to explore various open source tools for mainframe modernization.
Among other notable findings from the study:
- More than 72% of government agencies expect to set aside budgets over the next 6-24 months to modernize their mainframe applications.
- 40% expect to budget mainframe modernization projects in 1 year or less.
- Only about 6% said mainframe-directed cloud computing will be part of their modernization efforts.
- 54% of respondents listed their top mainframe modernization goals was to web-enabled systems.
- 38% said making mainframe apps more Windows-friendly is their top modernization priority
