NEW DELHI, INDIA: Micro Focus International plc has announced that Micro Focus will enable secure, reliable and scalable enterprise COBOL applications to run on the Azure Services Platform.  As part of an enterprise modernization strategy, organizations will be able to harness cloud computing to deliver Micro Focus expertise as software+services on the Microsoft platform. This announcement builds on the Micro Focus / Microsoft relationship, announced in July, further extending their joint technology roadmap.

For the first time, and demonstrated at PDC, Micro Focus enables corporations to move existing enterprise COBOL applications into the cloud either as private cloud services, available only to that company, or as cloud applications available to the marketplace as a whole. As corporations move to a single global operating model, the immediate availability and scalability of Azure accelerates deployment of enterprise applications that support the business, and reduces the investment required.

"Current experience clearly demonstrates the value of moving to an open, agile platform with operating costs decreasing by between 50 and 90% for each application. Cloud computing models enable further consolidation and virtualization of the single global operating model, and are expected to reduce future investment requirements by a similar factor," said Stuart McGill, CTO at Micro Focus. "Companies need to start today to embrace modernization strategies from Micro Focus and Microsoft to prepare for all the benefits of the Azure Services Platform enterprise cloud computing platform.  The demonstration here at PDC is our first step towards a comprehensive Micro Focus cloud computing roadmap."

"The Azure Services Platform helps industry partners like Micro Focus modernize applications by delivering the flexibility, choice, and control enterprises require," said Robert Wahbe, Corporate Vice President, Connected Systems Division at Microsoft. "We are pleased to work with Micro Focus to help developers create applications in the cloud with familiar tools, less complexity, and an open platform."

Cloud-computing will change the economics of IT expenditure, moving from anera of capital investment in unique hardware and infrastructure with its associated resource requirements and operating cost,  to one of commonly available utility services. Companies can derive dramatic economic benefit and increased agility through application modernization today. Coupled with adopting cloud architectures and Azure, customers can expect to see further dramatic reduction in operating costs.