Micro Focus Simplifies COBOL for Portability to Java, Microsoft Azure Cloud and .NET Platforms

With an estimated 220 billion lines of COBOL code in active use in business and finance applications today, Rewriting these COBOL applications to incorporate new technologies and platforms can be a costly and risky proposition for companies. Micro Focus 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 be deployed to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and the Microsoft Windows Azure cloud platform. With Visual COBOL R3, developers can choose to work with either the Visual Studio 2010 or the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Visual COBOL R3 can translate the COBOL language directly to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), allowing developers to create COBOL applications for the JVM framework and seamlessly integrate with Java. Extending COBOL functionality to the Azure, .NET and JVM platforms not only enhances and streamlines application portability but also increases productivity by giving developers the ability to easily manage core applications across multiple platforms.