[krinchan]

Furthermore, lately IBM has literally bought Mainframe developers off of other companies. My employer several years ago pink-slipped their entire AS400 work force. Immediately, IBM showed up with job offers for all of them at a severe price cut as contractors. Then, for 5 years, they laid off 25% of them until all that was left were the cheapest, unmotivated code drones that would bill maximum hours and not ask for raises.

I've heard similar stories all over from companies on Mainframe/AS400 platforms. It's totally anecdotal, but at this point it's pretty in character from IBM these days.