Micro Focus Simplifies COBOL

With an estimated 220 billion lines of COBOL code in active use in business and finance applications today, COBOL systems are powering more than 70 percent of the world’s businesses. Rewriting these COBOL applications to incorporate new technologies and platforms can be a costly and risky proposition for companies. To help defray costs and minimise risk, Micro Focus has launched Visual COBOL R3, which gives developers the freedom to extend COBOL to the latest platforms using a variety of application development environments, without having to rewrite code.

In addition to Windows, UNIX, Linux and .NET, COBOL applications can now be deployed to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and the Microsoft Windows Azure cloud platform for the first time. With Visual COBOL R3, developers can choose to work with either the Visual Studio 2010 or the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

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“India is a key market for software development and we are excited to launch this latest generation COBOL developer tool. Visual COBOL is set to be the most advanced version of the COBOL development platform in existence, combining the heritage of a language that has defined business computing for over 50 years with the latest advancements in computing, such as object-oriented architecture and the ability to integrate with the latest languages, applications and operating systems,” said Akshay Aggarwal, Country General Manager–India, Micro Focus. “Micro Focus has made it possible to use COBOL in whichever development environment makes the most sense to your organisation. Visual COBOL R3 offers the freedom of new technology to build applications with true portability from Windows and .net to Unix, Linux, JVM and the cloud. I am confident that this product will be an asset to businesses wanting to extend and integrate existing applications to meet new emerging business needs.”

“As today’s enterprises continue to expand into new markets, the need to introduce innovative products, reduce time to market and increase efficiency is more critical than ever,” said Stuart McGill, CTO, Micro Focus. “Visual COBOL R3 combines the productivity and innovation of the industry’s leading development environments with COBOL’s business-tested performance. New recruits to COBOL can learn it in hours, not days, helping them extend the life of business-critical applications and develop new, high-powered applications using COBOL– which many may not even considered possible before.”