Let's face it, everybody knows that mainframes are dying. IBM knows it, these Enterprise System Media guys know it (whoever they are), and most importantly, every one of these big fortune 500 companies stuck with COBOL apps know it. How many new projects are started each year that target mainframes? Or, alternatively, how many companies who don't have any mainframes are thinking about purchasing some for their new service? I'm guessing close to zero, or maybe even actually zero.
The insane premium (in cost, in difficulty to learn, in everything) that you're paying for those bazillion 9s of reliability aren't worth it. Anyone who actually needs that kind of reliability has the technical knowledge to make it themselves using x86_64. According to his talking points, big tech should be loving mainframes and exclusively use them. But in fact, it's the opposite. The most savvy and powerful tech companies use commodity x86_64 while the not so savvy are stuck with their 1980s mainframes. In Emmanual Derman's "My Life as a Quant", he talks about developing a new bond analytics platform at Goldman Sachs. His team decided to build it on Unix (though Genera was floated around as an idea as well), because it was the modern choice and mainframes were legacy. And this was in the early 80s!
This article is so unenthusiastic, it's kind of sad. It's like the author knows what he's saying is total bullshit. I predict that in the next 10 years, IBM is going to stop selling hardware (I'm not even sure why they haven't already, but then again, the company isn't exactly a paragon of good management) and just release some virtualization package that can run all the legacy crap on x86_64. Or maybe this has already happened, finding any information on what IBM an product actually does is quite difficult. I get the impression that no one actually calls IBM to inquire about a product. Instead, I'm sure some middle management guy sells out his company for a $60 steak and some wine.