PCs work as well as mainframes . Sorry, but they don't. In a network, you can multiply these problems by hundreds if not thousands of desktops. Mainframes, by contrast, offer near-guaranteed reliability. Developed over the last 20 or 30 years, they are largely bug-free.
Horror stories abound.
Laberis tells of a leading investment bank, First Boston, that went network. Gartner's Schay tells of a major auto-leasing company that switched to PCs, only to find that it couldn't keep up with the crush of reservations. Just plug in and play. It won't be for a very long time. Such disillusionment has the folks at IBM practically crowing ing.