Welcome week activities for the new first year computing students at Kent culminated in an entertaining talk from Barry Spiers, Development Manager with IBM.

The talk, 'Did you say mainframe?' was an informative discussion of the world of computing beyond university. Although not generally appreciated, mainframes are extremely prevalent in todays world and form the mainstay of global business processes. Indeed, 70% of world business data is held on mainframes. This success is largely due to the high level of security, speed and capacity provided by mainframes which can reliably cope with the ever increasing demands of modern business activities.

During the talk the annual 'IBM Student Mainframe Competition' was announced. The competition, which is aimed at college and university students, consists of three stages - Breaking the Ice; Practical Experience; Real World Challenge - each requiring different skills and increasing difficulty levels as the competition progresses. Students do not need previous mainframe experience to participate and registration commences on 14th October.

Barry Spiers is a Development Manager (WebSphere MQ), at IBM based at Hursley, near Winchester.

The IBM talk took place at the University of Kent (Canterbury Campus) on Friday 26 September 2008.

Published 8 October 2008
Contact: M.L.Bowman@kent.ac.uk