COBOL Market Leader

Why are we the world's leading independent COBOL provider?

Micro Focus is the widely acknowledged industry leader in providing COBOL compilers and development environments for Windows, UNIX and Linux (including zLinux on IBM mainframes) while IBM is the acknowledged industry leader in providing COBOL compilers for z/OS on the IBM mainframe.

Micro Focus established this position when it was the first company to release a COBOL compiler for micro processors back in 1976 and we have since continued to innovate in this market space.

Aims as COBOL Market Leader

Our aims are (and have always been) three fold

1. Enable our customers to run COBOL applications on whatever server environment makes business sense for them
2. Ensure the COBOL applications can utilize the latest market leading technologies (like XML, .NET, J2EE, Web services) so COBOL can be extended and re-used effectively
3. Provide developers with superior value development tooling to enable them to satisfy new business requirements faster than using any other approach     

Why we are the COBOL Market Leader

Our people, passion and purpose are focused on innovation and commitment to helping customers make the most from their investments in COBOL. This was instrumental in establishing our initial leading position and remaining in that position ever since.

The key reasons our customers select Micro Focus are

• Maximizing the return on the investment made in both their COBOL applications and their COBOL developers is important to our customers.  
  • In relative terms, Investing a small percentage of the overall operating costs of these applications to ensure their developers have the best tools to do their job as efficiently as possible is usually seen as a wise investment. Compromising on quality and functionality of their COBOL development and deployment technology does not make business sense in terms of maximizing ROI     
• Micro Focus provides the highest quality, most robust COBOL development and execution environment in the market. These development environments have evolved over thirty years and offer   
  • the fastest ever edit/compile/debug cycle
  • the project management and productivity tools expected from contemporary IDEs
  • up to 50% more productivity than other COBOL development environments     
• Applications compiled with Micro Focus COBOL run faster than when compiled with any other COBOL because we optimize execution for all chip sets and operating systems.   
  • This enables our customers to maximize the performance of their online and batch applications to better service their businesses     
• When it comes to data management, Micro Focus COBOL provides unsurpassed file processing performance and RDBMS integration.   
  • ODBC/JDBC drivers are available for Micro Focus file formats, data held in those files can be accessed by best of breed reporting tools so they can be used to satisfy complex reporting requirements.
  • Alternatively, if required, the data in COBOL files can be migrated to any popular relational database and processed by existing COBOL applications using any standard SQL access mechanisms.     
• Micro Focus releases our optimized COBOL compiler and execution technology simultaneously across all popular Windows, UNIX and Linux platforms.   
  • Currently we have products running on 50 platforms  so our customers have unparalleled choice and can deliver COBOL systems on the platform(s) that make the most business sense for them.     
• Micro Focus has enjoyed a strong market position for a long time with a large installed base. Consequently, we make more annual investment in R&D and superior customer support than all other COBOL vendors combined.   
  • This enables Micro Focus to continue delivering the new innovations our customers require while providing our year-on-year award winning support services     
• Modernization of the user interface of your COBOL applications is one of the most common requirements of our customers. Micro Focus offers the widest choice of User Interface development tools for COBOL applications including;   
  • the ability to use Microsoft painters or Java toolkits to add modern WinForms/WebForms or Java Server Page based user interfaces to existing COBOL applications. 
• a comprehensive set of extension tools to expose existing functions as Web services, for use within SOA, .NET or J2EE architectures our customers can meet the most demanding user interface requirements.     
• Micro Focus constantly innovates in the COBOL market space to ensure our customers can take advantage of contemporary technologies to meet new business requirements while avoiding high risk replacement or re-write strategies. These innovations have involved   
  • making COBOL available on all popular microprocessors and operating systems, 
  • adding OO COBOL and XML processing facilities 
  • integration with .NET and J2EE 
  • support for all popular relational databases 
  • native COBOL Web services deployment features 
  • support for SOA.     
• The Micro Focus products are used on COBOL applications that typically satisfy unique and important requirements of the business. The applications are often mission critical and so the quality of the COBOL development and more importantly the COBOL deployment products are vital, as is the product support.