[rdtsc]

What about the idea of offering a mainframe experience for the cloud? Have a mainframe but instead of delivering it to a customer with a groups of consultants just offer its aspects as a service?

(Disclaimer: I have not idea what I am talking about when it comes to mainframe, just a quick thought that popped into my head).

[aus_]

I think IBM is headed that direction with BlueMix. That is their public cloud offering. However, there are no mainframe offerings yet.