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From 1987 until 2024 Watson & Walker offered mainframe performance and measurement advice through classes, consulting, and Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter. We assisted system programmers, capacity planners and performance analysts worldwide who use the IBM z/OS (previously the OS/390 or MVS) operating system. Our goal was to provide vendor-independent and very practical assistance and training, keeping our customers up-to-date and saving them valuable time, money and resources. We hope all our customers and friends will continue to subscribe to the Tuning Letter at Planet Mainframe and use their many other articles and links. Thanks to our many, many customers and friends!

Cheryl Watson

CEO and co-founder

Cheryl Watson is known around the world for her passion and enthusiasm for IBM mainframes and the software that runs on them. She is most well-known for her z/OS (formerly MVS) newsletter, Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter, published since 1991.

Cheryl discovered her love of computers in 1965 when taking a math class at Portland State University and using an IBM 1620 to calculate PI to 30 precision points! After graduation, she went to work at Consolidated Freightways as a trainee programmer – first in 1401/7010 Autocoder, and then in assembler and COBOL. She was on the system programming team the year when their first IBM 360 was installed (1966), and has avidly followed the 360’s transformation ever since. Her favorite z/OS topics include SMF, WLM, SRM, z/OSMF, and chargeback. She’s never met an SMF record she didn’t like.

After working with several software development firms and in the Amdahl education center, she joined EDS in 1970 for a total of 11 years (on and off), working as an educator, performance analyst, capacity planner, system programmer, CICS administrator, and trouble-shooter in many of their offices around the world. A lot of her outsourcing experience came from this work as an outsourcer. Following EDS, she joined Morino Associates in their England and Germany offices, returning to the US in 1984, and working in SAS on their MICS product (now supported by Broadcom).

After meeting Tom Walker in 1986, Cheryl became an independent consultant, often consulting back to customers of outsourcers, so she saw the other (and often uglier) side of the situation. She taught performance and internals classes and wrote for various journals, such as Bob Thomas’ MVS Journal (now Enterprise Systems Media), and TechSupport magazine. In 1988 Cheryl and Tom formed their own company, Watson & Walker, Inc. See the company history above for their history together. For a fuller bio of Cheryl, see a white paper created by NewEra Software and available on their website.

For relaxation, Cheryl enjoys traveling the world, playing bridge, and doing logic puzzles.

Tom Walker

Co-founder

Tom financed and co-founded the company in 1988. Like Cheryl, he started working with mainframes in 1965. Tom helps oversee all strategy and operating functions of the company, with a particular focus on our marketing and development activities.

Prior to Watson & Walker he was part owner, starting in 1970, of a timesharing company, Dialcom, Inc., in Silver Spring, MD. There, using Honeywell and then Prime computers, he helped design and code software such as a correspondence system for the U.S. Congress, and, in 1979, ‘The Source’, a home computing offering featuring such things as custom databases, UPI news searches, and an email system. (He also, in 1979, coined the command name “chat” to invoke their online user interaction.) The company was sold to ITT in 1982, and he served for a brief time on the ITT board of directors before retiring in 1986. Shortly after that he met Cheryl, and they’ve lived and worked together ever since.

Between 1965 and 1970, Tom worked as an analyst and programmer for the GE Computer division in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was born in Durham, NC and graduated from Duke University.

When not working or traveling with Cheryl, Tom hosts the Peace & Justice Report at WSLR/Fogartyville, a low-power, nonprofit FM radio station and community center in Sarasota, Florida. He and Cheryl also host a weekly Great Books discussion group which has been meeting for over thirty years.

Sydney

Office Manager

Sydney joined the team in March of 2020 as our Office Manager. She also handles Accounts Receivable contacts and finances.

Subscribers to either the Tuning Letter or our software products, work with Sydney during the renewal or new subscriber process.

Sydney has been operating her own accounting business in both FLA and NC and has been counting the beans ever since!

Our Story

Watson & Walker, Inc. has always had one goal – to provide the best independent measurement and performance advice possible to users of IBM mainframes. Here’s how we started and how we grew:

2024 - Planet Mainframe Becomes New Publisher of Cheryl Watson's Tuning Letter

After Tom and Cheryl announced their retirement at the Orlando Share in March of 2024, Planet Mainframe reached out to them saying they were interested in the continuation of Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter. Planet Mainframe was already known for their vendor-independent status as publisher of the Arcati Yearbook, so it appeared like a match made in heaven. Customers were delighted to find that the Tuning Letter would continue, and Cheryl and Tom were grateful that their legacy would continue. Please see their website for the Tuning Letter.

2020

Sydney, an accomplished accountant, joins Watson & Walker as our office manager and accounts receivable specialist. Her expertise has proved invaluable.

2018

Mario Bezzi, formerly of IBM Italy, joins Watson & Walker as a part-time consultant, adding his expertise, especially in the area of SMF, performance, Parallel Sysplex, and programming.

2015

Alan Murphy, formerly of IBM Global Services joins Watson & Walker as a part-time consultant, adding his expertise, especially in the areas of outsourcing and software pricing.

2015

A non-SAS version of BoxScore begins development with partner H&W Computer Systems.

2014

Cheryl receives the 2014 Share President’s Award for her work as a volunteer. In 2015 she received her 35-year pin for those years of volunteering at Share.

2014

Rob Kyne, Frank’s son, joins our team, refining our software tools and heading up our accounting efforts.

2014

Classes and consulting are again offered worldwide with Frank’s help, and the scope of the Tuning Letter is greatly increased with Frank as Editor.

2014

Frank Kyne leaves IBM and joins Watson & Walker, giving the company a tremendous infusion of energy and experience.

2010

Cheryl is inducted into the Mainframe Hall of Fame by Enterprise Systems Media.

2004

Cheryl Watson’s GoalTender – This software allows users to monitor WLM policies and performance.

2002

Scott Barry of SBBWorks is enlisted to help with BoxScore enhancements.

1999

Computer Measurement Group’s annual A. A. Michelson Award is presented to Cheryl for contributions to the computer evaluation field.

1998

Cheryl Watson’s BoxScore is announced – This SAS-based software provides after the fact benchmarks measuring the performance changes after a processor upgrade or software change.

1995

Cheryl Watson’s QuickStart Policy is created. In order to help users migrate from SRM policies to Workload Manager policies, Cheryl creates her QuickStart Policy and makes it available at no cost. It is promoted by IBM on their web pages and soon becomes the most widely used WLM policy in the world.

January 1992

The first annual CD is published containing all past Tuning Letters, a quickly searchable compendium. The now-larger DVD is still updated and offered annually at no charge to subscribers.

1991

The first Cheryl Watson’s CPU Chart is provided free to subscribers. This Excel spreadsheet, now with over 1000 processors, quickly becomes an industry standard, used by customers and vendors alike to determine expected performance. It is updated whenever new mainframes are added, and contains the most comprehensive amount of processor information in a single place.

January 1991

The first issue of Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter is published – only sixteen pages. Within two years the monthly newsletter it is being read in 1200 firms in over forty countries, a growth accomplished mainly by word of mouth referrals. A no-advertising policy within the Tuning Letter underlines Cheryl’s stated independence from all vendors.

1988

Cheryl and Tom form Watson & Walker, Inc. Their first offerings are classes in SMF, RMF, and MVS performance.

1986

Cheryl Watson and Tom Walker meet in Washington, DC. Cheryl leaves her employer to become an independent consultant, teaching performance classes and writing magazine articles.

There's a lot more to come in the years ahead!

We want to say thanks to all our customers and friends we’ve met along the way! Our focus will remain on helping our users to be more knowledgeable and productive, to reduce costs and to improve performance for their enterprises. Stay tuned for further developments!


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