'COBOL is alive and kicking'

BANGALORE, INDIA: Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL) used to be a much talked about programming language in the '80s. However of late, it has receded into the background and ‘perceived’ to be dead. But surprisingly, some 75 percent of the world's business data is still processed in COBOL, and about 90 percent of all financial transactions are in COBOL.

"COBOL is very much alive and kicking. If somebody said COBOL is dead, I would say NO," says Ashish Masand, country manager - India, Micro Focus.  “Because of the massive installed base, it was too expensive to try to replace all the code,” he says.

COBOL has become a better option for mission critical applications. There are over 200 billion lines of COBOL code in production today. CIOs across industry verticals have started viewing COBOL as an asset and are looking at ways to integrate COBOL with newer applications, Masand explains.

In a 2007 Micro Focus survey of its customers, more than 75 percent of CIOs said they would need more COBOL programmers over the next five years, and 73 percent were already having a hard time trying to find trained COBOL professionals.

Micro Focus provides software products to help modernize COBOL applications. It benefits organizations needing to extend legacy functionality. By helping improve time-to-market of application maintenance and modernization projects, Micro Focus tools free up key staff to work on strategic initiatives such as SOA3 enablement, Basel II and Sarbanes-Oxley. These tools include capabilities to allow COBOL programmers to quickly and easily extend legacy systems using SOA architectures into J2EE, .NET or Web services, without changing the original code or having to learn new architectures

ACTION Program
“COBOL modernization and standardization is also critical for the training of a new generation of programmers, many of whom are entering a job market with a strong demand for COBOL expertise due to the growing IT skills shortage,” says Masand. Last year, Micro Focus launched the Academic ConnecTIONs (ACTION) Program, partnering with schools to train students in core COBOL skills by providing universities with free access to the latest technology and teaching tools for enterprise application development.

With over 50 member universities in 14 countries, Micro Focus expects more than 5,000 ACTION program graduates each year. This helps connect enterprises with young developers equipped with essential COBOL and related skills.

We are also strongly focusing on the Developer community, Masand says. “Next year, we are planning to launch the ‘Action’ Program in India, which has been localized to the requirements here.”

Under this program, free software is offered to colleges and universities to provide COBOL training, web services development, mainframe application development etc. The company is looking at institutions which have these capabilities, says Masand.

Explaining further, he says, “Colleges we identify should be willing to provide a separate lab and impart structured method of training and education. On a long-term basis, we will provide a mainframe development tool that will run on a Windows desktop. “Here there will be no investment on mainframe to impart the training. It’s a very attractive option,” he adds.

“The COBOL population is growing old world over. This gap needs top be filled in. Further, there is more and more mainframe related work on hand and there is more demand for people. Many training centers are approaching us for using our mainframe tools permanently,” he adds.

Micro Focus is also looking at an option of implementing a Centre of Excellence. “We are looking at partnership programs and help them move up the value chain,” says Masand. “Today, there is a clear demand to empower the engineering and technical students.”