Navigating Today’s Hybrid IT Landscape as a Small to Mid-Sized Business - The Main Scoop

If you run the mainframe efficiently, it can support businesses of any size – whether that’s small, mid-sized, or global enterprise.

On this episode of The Main Scoop, hosts Daniel Newman, CEO and Chief Analyst at Futurum, and Greg Lotko, SVP & GM, Mainframe Software Division at Broadcom, sit down with John Kamen, President and CEO of Blue Hill Data Services, to discuss how smaller businesses can keep critical systems running while managing software and hardware across today’s hybrid IT environments.

The conversation highlights the real constraints that small and mid-sized businesses face, including limited budgets, tight technical resources, and the complexity of operating across multiple platforms. John outlines how organizations are keeping core workloads stable and modernizing with intent by running the mainframe efficiently, leaning on managed services, and making focused modernization decisions that move the business forward without stretching teams too thin.

‍Key Takeaways Include:

🔹 Mainframe efficiency matters at every scale: When run properly, the mainframe remains a strong foundation for critical workloads, regardless of company size.

🔹 Hybrid IT increases complexity: Small and mid-sized businesses often operate across multiple platforms, increasing operational and maintenance demands.

🔹 Resource constraints drive strategy: Limited funding and talent require smarter approaches to modernization, not wholesale replacement.

🔹 Services and partnerships fill gaps: Managed services, staff augmentation, and hosted models help smaller organizations maintain stability while evolving their environments.

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Greg Lotko:

Welcome back to The Main Scoop. You know, when I think about technology, we talk about the different capabilities. We talk about what technology has been around for a while. We talk about new trends and mixing those technologies. But I don't think we've ever had a conversation about the fundamentals, about the idea that you know, as you go forward in time, you have firmware upgrades, you have hardware changes, you have software, you have OS, you have middleware, all that as a foundation to your development environment and everything that's being manifested out to the customers. And that is a lot to keep up with.

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Daniel Newman:

It is. It's created a massive ecosystem of GSIs, of consulting firms, of software and services providers. Because in reality, it's most of the time too much for most enterprises to keep up with. Most governments, organizations, and, you know, nonprofit organizations, end up needing a lot of help because technology, and I'll always say this, Greg, is incredibly deflationary. It isn't always incredibly easy.

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Greg Lotko:

And there, look, there are some organizations that invest heavily in all the skills, not just for the development, but to run their operations. And then there's other, you know, medium, small sized businesses that, based on what they need to focus their attention on or their limited budgets. That other stuff of maintaining the environment, keeping it secure and stable, having the opportunity to take advantage of the latest technologies becomes too much for them, right? So they turn to those MSPs, to those GSIs, and that's what brings in our guests for all day, right?

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Daniel Newman:

Yeah. And by the way, what's really fun about being a smaller or midsize company, I've built a few of them over the years, is that technology now has been democratized as such that with the right partners, with the right technology itself, and of course, with the right vision, small companies can be incredibly nimble, fast, and function like enterprises. But again, I got to have the right partner.

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Greg Lotko:

Everybody can have access.

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Daniel Newman:

Maybe a guest that can talk about that.

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Greg Lotko:

Absolutely. So joining us today, we have John Kamen. He's the CEO of Blue Hill Data Services. And I know you've got a bunch of experience, you know, from both sides, from being at Blue Hill, but also before that, in selling and maintaining and operating hardware for businesses. But you kind of newly moved into this space. So you must see something going on in the industry or that niche or the segment that could use the help. So tell us a little bit about yourself, your career, your perspective on IT, and then a bit about your role at Blue Hill, and then we'll generalize.

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John Kamen:

So currently, I am the president and CEO of Blue Hill Data Services. My background was really hardware, building hardware data centers, mainframe data centers for almost 40 years, maintaining those data centers. Blue Hill was actually one of my customers, and I got involved with them as time went on, as it's a 30-year-old company. And we are a managed services company, primarily on the mainframe side. And what I love about the company is that we're small enough to be able to help small, mainframe-sized companies. You know, we can go in and offer all different types of services, from remote support to total managed support, taking over their entire data center with just applications programs, all different things that we offer customized services to help the customers. And it's a great company with great people. They've been around a long time, great teams of people and really what we're customer focused.

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Greg Lotko:

Yeah. Yeah. So I, you, you think about, you know, what's going on out there when, when customers come to you or businesses like you, is it, is it that they really know what it is that they're falling behind on? Or are they just. feeling like, hey, I'm getting overwhelmed. I'm maybe not keeping up with my package app update or the hardware or the software, or is it kind of... It's all of the above.

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John Kamen:

There's hardware issues. There's the workforce. Aging out is a big issue right now. We do a lot of learning for companies, and then as the workforce ages out, we take over their positions. The budgets are always an issue. There's security issues. There's a lot of different reasons why we are getting involved now. And because the company has such a great reputation, we really grow because of that. Municipalities, you know, talk to each other, recommend us, and that's really how the business grows.

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Daniel Newman:

So in the small business space in particular, though, the challenges are unique. I know Greg and I, we rift a bit on what we see and the uniqueness of small business, but it sounds like Blue Hill really focuses on that quite a bit. As this hybrid work environment continues to evolve, as technological change continues to shift, I imagine Blue Hill's had to change what it services, what it's capable of, how your teams work, but also you're probably seeing quite a bit about how small businesses are facing the challenges and how they're taking that challenge head on. Can you share a little bit about what you're seeing in that area?

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John Kamen:

What we're seeing is a lot of small and mid-sized mainframe customers would like to get off the mainframe because of some of the challenges they're facing. So what we do is when we bring them in and we show them the value that we have, they kind of back off on that because they understand the platform is so strong and secure.

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Greg Lotko:

So they think they want to get off because they're having trouble keeping it up to date and maintaining it. It's not that it's creating a business problem for them, but they think there's not a way to keep up.

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John Kamen:

Right. They struggle because of the workforce, mostly, and the budgets. Really, it's the small and mid-sized mainframe customers that don't have the budgets of the big companies. So they need help. And that's where we come in. And we, we're experts. These guys are, these teams that I have been working together with, some of them for 25 years. And they understand the environment. And they, they know exactly, they listen to what the problems are. They design custom solutions. The customer's happy. And now all of a sudden, they're, they're not in such a rush because they understand the security and the strength of the mainframe.

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Greg Lotko:

Yeah, so in that space, I mean, if you think about the large companies that might have, you know, a dozen, 15, 20 mainframes, if they kind of do a rolling thunder of upgrades throughout their estate, they're always doing the process and keeping their skills up to date. But if you're a smaller company, you only have one or two frames, you might not touch it the same way for six, nine months, maybe even a couple of years at the time. So for you aggregating a bunch of those small customers into one environment, your folks are doing it across the whole state.

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John Kamen:

A lot of times we'll provide test systems for these companies. So we'll give them LPARs, or we'll give them a mainframe within our environment for them to do their upgrades, or we'll work with them to do their upgrades.

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Greg Lotko:

So it's an opportunity to expand capacity and share it versus them having to purchase it separately.

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John Kamen:

Because they don't have the budgets. The small, mid-sized companies don't have big budgets.

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Greg Lotko:

So what you end up showing them is that the issue is not the technology, it's keeping it up to date. And if you run it effectively and efficiently, it can serve the business appropriately. Exactly.

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Daniel Newman:

What about the hybridization though? So when they do come to you, because we talk about this a lot, there's the role for the mainframe, and we very much believe. And then, of course, there are these new architectures, multi-cloud, you know, environments. Sometimes, like I said, certain, like, I imagine all these companies you're working with, I know you said you sort of lead with mainframe, but in order to service them, they have hybrid environments, right? They're not running everything on the mainframe. They've got lots, but it all has to work together.

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John Kamen:

The mainframe is like the foundation. You know, they work their distributed systems. You know, it all ties into the mainframe. It's the whole world built around the mainframe.

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Greg Lotko:

So you connect. You don't end up taking this on in isolation.

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John Kamen:

Absolutely, yes. And we provide a lot of security for that, too. You know, when they have their systems in our facilities, it's a very secure environment. And we maintain that. We have 7-by-24 NOCs that watch everything that goes on within the environment.

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Daniel Newman:

So, talk about security a bit more, because like I said, we know how dependable, reliable the security of the mainframe is, right? But when you're doing this and you are connecting, you're building around this ecosystem, you are, you know, sometimes we bring the cloud in, for instance, you bring software, SaaS, other things in that are, you know, working interdependently with these mainframe environments, that introduces new threat surfaces. And then you bring AI into the picture now, and AI creates new risk. Small businesses probably have a lot of questions. Like you said, they don't have staff, they don't have budgets. Is the key to keep them basically up to what Greg said, keep them updated and moving forward on the mainframe and not so much evolving them to new architectures? Or are you sort of embracing with open arms? Like, yes, there's this new hybrid environment, but we will make it all secure. And how do you do that when there's no budget?

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John Kamen:

So a lot of these companies have initiatives. Their initiative is to put certain applications into the cloud and so on. So what we do is we provide cybersecurity. Also, we have partners for that. We also provide hardware maintenance so that when they're changing hardware or they want to move stuff, we're involved with it.

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Greg Lotko:

Beyond the mainframe.

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John Kamen:

Beyond just the mainframe. Right.

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Daniel Newman:

Very cool.

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John Kamen:

Yeah.

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Daniel Newman:

So what are the sort of, you know, approaches that you're seeing, you know, because like I said, I want to keep this kind of unique with the small and midsize companies, like, how aggressive are they? Like, how, I guess, kind of fear versus enthusiasm, right? They got a partner like you, they see the pace, you know, we had, we got a lot of guests on the show, we talked about how much faster they're moving with generative AI, we talked about how much, you know, is available to you through applications, SAS, different tools, like, Are small businesses excited? Are they grabbing hold of these opportunities, or are they kind of needing to be dragged along?

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John Kamen:

No, they're very excited. They have initiatives to create better experiences for their end users, right? And so they're always looking for ways to promote that, and how do they do it? We're more on the back-end side, the support side. You know, we don't go in the forefront of, you know, try this, you know, get this application. We support whatever direction they're going in.

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Greg Lotko:

So often I think you're freeing up your budget. You're actually even taking in-house some of the cream of the crop or their best resources, right? They don't have to focus on the operations and the maintenance. And then that allows them to take those funds to plow them into the experience to the end customers or into development.

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John Kamen:

We kind of give them the freedom to go where they want to go in other areas, you know, because the foundation is secure and we're taking over the responsibility, you know, all the programmers, the systems programmers and all those types of things. We take care of that for them so they can work on other things, you know. It's pretty awesome. They're very happy with us.

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Greg Lotko:

But it's an interesting pattern. I mean, we've talked about it a number of times here before, relative to technology and evolution, that if you don't resist it, if you move forward, if you learn the skills, if you take advantage of the technologies, that will make you more effective and efficient. And in those, you know, medium to smaller customers, sometimes they become a victim of their own budget. And when they let the underlying technology lag, they don't realize their full potential. So when they have an opportunity to turn this around, to say, hey, let's get the latest and greatest security capabilities, the APIs that will allow us to connect into generative AI and other processes and scan our libraries, that it kind of frees them up to say, wow, I can do so much more with this technology. It's unleashing them to move forward and move up on the value chain.

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John Kamen:

They're not worried about the current systems they're running. They're trying to look at, how do we go forward? How do we use the new technology to help the businesses create experience for the end user? That's what it comes down to. But still be secure. It's very difficult, and everybody knows about security.

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Greg Lotko:

Yeah. And I mean, it's interesting. We haven't, you know, mentioned the 4,000 pound elephant in the room here, thinking about cars and technology. When you use lower viscosity oils and when you use better antifreezes and the motor is running more efficiently, you can get better reliability and better performance out of the vehicle. If you never change the oil, if you leave biased ply tires on it, if you don't go to modern braking compounds, you're going to compare old technology that you've allowed to stay in an old context with the newer stuff. But if you have a partner, if you have a mechanic, if you have somebody to work with you or you understand the technologies and you bring them to bear, your performance only continues to evolve and enhance.

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Daniel Newman:

Yeah, there's almost an underlying theme here, though. You know, you started the conversation talking about your customers, these small companies, they often come to you and say, hey, we want to get off the platform, right? Initially, that's how they strike. And it sounds to me like, to your point, there's an oil change to be done, right? There's new spark plugs that need to be installed. There's upgrade the exhaust, the headers, whatever it is, though, to get that core system running, because in the small business world, which is really what we're talking about here, small companies, mid-sized companies, they can get to the modernizations they want, meaning both embracing cloud, embracing AI, and at the same time, make a smaller investment to tune up Yeah, the core vehicle, the core motor, the engine and the vehicle. And that actually opens all those doors. It opens them up to be more secure. It opens them up to use the newest tools, use the newest applications. Cause I'm kind of hearing that theme here is that you could spend a little to make the car perfect. And then at the same time, you can also roll that modern, you know, whatever your favorite, that modern charger, that modern Corvette in, and you can have the two running in tandem.

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Greg Lotko:

And it's even the ability that when you advance, when you enhance, when you add that capability, it lifts your head up and you look farther ahead. So one of the other big modifications you can make is to put modern LED headlights in a classic car. And now all of a sudden you can see further down the road. You can anticipate the turn coming up and it makes you much safer and it makes you a much better driver.

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John Kamen:

We have seen some of our customers try to modernize, and it turns out they do it for budgetary reasons, and their budgets get blown away. They wind up with triple budgets. It's not working the way they thought it was going to work. And off the record, they wish they never did it.

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Greg Lotko:

Yeah. And it, and it relates, right? I mean, you look at the classic cars that everybody says, Oh my God, let's put those dubs on it. Let's put the 20, 22 inch wheels on it with the narrow profile tires. And they have the old shocks in it. And the thing rides like a cement truck and they go, Oh my God, now that I modified the wheels and tires, I got to do the shocks. And before you knew they're taking the car somewhere, they never wanted it to. That's what happens when you chase technology for technology's sake in a business.

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Daniel Newman:

And I'll tell you something, uh, Greg and John, you know, as a, someone that runs a company has bought a lot of software, invested in, in infrastructure. I could tell you firsthand that chasing sometimes the next and the newest and the coolest thing becomes a science experiment. It becomes very expensive. And by the way, it can be very distracting to small companies with limited resources. They have to be very thoughtful. So sometimes getting that right, keeping the car cherry and pristine, and just finding ways to maybe just add the LED headlights and not add things it doesn't need.

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Greg Lotko:

You can end up running past and ignoring the core and inherent value you have because you're blinded by technology. It has to be, as we've said many times here, technology with a business purpose. Absolutely.

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John Kamen:

And I also think some of these customers don't realize the depth that they have in their systems because they've been around so long. You know, when they start looking at these programs and they try to take them apart, it's years and years and years, and they're just wasting so much time. And they say, why don't we just leave this alone and add on to it with some new technology? And that's where I think the real benefits are. That's a great point.

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Greg Lotko:

Agreed.

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Daniel Newman:

Great lights up. Cars and mainframes.

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Greg Lotko:

Yeah.

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Daniel Newman:

Hey, I want to thank you so much for being part of this show. It was a lot of fun to have you here. It's my pleasure. It's really great to hear about, you know, small and mid-sized companies. These are the, I mean, this is the foundation, you know, everybody gets focused on the, you know, the Mag 7s and then the fabulous 10s and everything, but the world is made up of many small businesses, small municipalities. You know, nonprofits and many organizations that all need the benefit of the best technology, and of course, getting life out of the technology they've already invested in.

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Greg Lotko:

And look what we're doing here for you on The Main Scoop, folks. It's not often I get to be flanked by two CEOs. I feel supercharged.

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Daniel Newman:

Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Forward to Chandu. I really enjoyed it. Bring us home. Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody, for being part of this episode of The Main Scoop. It's great to be here with you. Greg, always great to be by your side. And it's always great to have a little classic in the background.

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Greg Lotko:

That's kind of a fig classic. But I agree. It's great to have a car with us.

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Daniel Newman:

It's great to have a car with us. Stay with us. Subscribe. Be part of our community. We appreciate all of you. See you all later.

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Greg Lotko:

See you next time. Bye-bye.

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