Our friends at Compuware recently shared the results of a study they conducted, showing how stagnant mainframe environments can be a real drag on developer productivity and IT efficiency. By "stagnant," they mean staying closed and proprietary with the same old COBOL code, and mainly operating in maintenance mode. Such locked-away environments, say 69% of CIOs, make it difficult to attract new talent that can keep the systems running. It's not for lack of trying that some mainframe sites are in a backwater: the CIOs blame high acquisition costs (60%), complex integration (54%) and high training and implementation costs (45%) for their inability to modernize their mainframe environments. In addition, close to half of the CIOs (46%) admit to having no plans in place to address impending mainframe developer shortages. To stay on top of all the trends, subscribe to Database Trends and Applications magazine.