Portfolio
Rightsizing: Time Waits for no Technology
Source: Netware Connection Published: May 1993
Rightsizing, downsizing, smartsizing, resizing-you can’t open a network trade magazine these days without running across one or the other of these trendy buzzwords. So what is this phenomenon all about?
Several technologies that arose in the 1980s paved the way for the migration from mainframes to PC networks. Micro-mainframe links, or cards, that allowed PCs to act as dumb terminals, and PC-based mainframe language compilers that allowed you to write mainframe applications on the PC were just a few. Dr. George Schussel, founder of 11-year-old Digital Consulting Inc., picked up on these and other indicators and, in 1989, initiated the biannual Downsizing Expo, the first and only trade show dedicated to this business issue.
“Porting applications from a mainframe to a PC is a very natural trend,” says Schussel, who noticed in the latter part of the 1980s that a few avant-garde firms were porting applications from the mainframe to the PC environment. He recalled a few of these rare cases of rightsizing: “One that I visited that I found interesting was Echlin Manufacturing, out of Connecticut. They had rebuilt all of their corporate systems for a PC LAN. It saved a huge amount of budget money. You began to hear about rare kinds of companies doing things like that; it was stunning in each case. [For example,] Turner Construction, out of New York City, got rid of all their mainframes and minis and ran their entire company on 3,000 PCs, People began to realize you can do it.”
Schussel cites the advent of client/server computing, which was introduced by the Sybase Corporation, as fundamental to the climate for change. While client-server computing was slow to get off the ground due to the lack of desktop standards, the emergence of Windows 3.0 changed all that. “When Windows 3.0 hit the market, it became clear to me instantly. . . . I went out on the lecture circuit and began telling people the battle is over; Windows is the standard. I got a lot of criticism back in 1990 and 1991 for saying that . . . but now no one disputes it.” The introduction of Windows 3.0, says Schussel, was an incentive for tools manufacturers that make high-level application development languages to develop tools for building client-side applications for Windows.
