NEW DELHI, INDIA: Micro Focus International plc ,  provider of enterprise application management, development and modernization solutions, announced its first COBOL User Group meeting in India at the Hotel Chola Sheraton in Chennai on January 21st, 2009. Mark Haynie, CTO Modernization from Micro Focus will be delivering the keynote address followed by guest speakers from LIC and Dr. Shri. D. B. Phatak, Professor from IIT Mumbai who will speak about the essence of COBOL in Modern IT systems.

This one-day event will discuss and share best practices on overcoming the challenges of modernizing Enterprise IT Systems and increasing productivity of developers in today's business environment.

Ashish Masand, Country Manager, Micro Focus India said, "We are delighted to be hosting the first COBOL user group meeting in India, where industry experts and users come together to share the latest developments in COBOL and discuss how organizations around the world are taking their Enterprise IT systems to the next level."

The event will cover topics such as "Realising the Value of Enterprise IT Systems" and will delve into subjects on COBOL application development and application Modernization in the 21st century. It will also showcase live demonstrations on the whole lifecycle of application assessment, application development, application modernization and application re-hosting of COBOL applications on mainframe, Windows and
Unix / Linux systems.