Prado Roberts Manufacturing is a medium-sized company with regional offices in several western states and manufacturing facilities in both California and Nevada. The company performs most of its important data processing tasks, such as payroll, accounting, marketing, and inventory control, on a mainframe computer at corporate headquarters. However, almost all the managers at this company also have microcomputers, which they use for such personal productivity tasks as word processing, analyzing budgets (using spreadsheets), and managing the data in small databases. The IT manager, Tonya Fisher, realizes that there are both advantages and disadvantages of using different types of systems to meet the processing needs of her company. Although she acknowledges that many companies are racing ahead to install microcomputers and client/server systems, she also knows that the corporate mainframe system has provided her company with some advantages that smaller systems cannot match. Tonya knows that American companies annually purchase over $5 billion in used computers, primarily mainframes.

Requirements
1. Identify several advantages and disadvantages of operating a mainframe computer system that is likely to be present at Prado Roberts Manufacturing. Are these advantages and disadvantages likely to parallel those at other manufacturing companies?
2. Identify at least two factors or actions that companies experience or do to prolong the lives of their legacy systems. Are these factors or actions likely to apply to Prado Roberts Manufacturing?
3. Identify several advantages and disadvantages of microcomputer/client server systems. Would these advantages apply to Prado Roberts Manufacturing?
(CMA Adapted)