COBOL Programs, Software, Tutorials, Examples, References, Learning and Jobs

This site is dedicated to COBOL and to those with an investment in COBOL. There are many Internet sites that provide information about COBOL. The COBOL Center brings that information together so that you will not need to cruise all over the Web to find it. Practical help is what you will find here. We invite you to sign our Guest Book.

Micro Focus Acquires Acucorp

IT Jungle, COBOL rival Acucorp has been acquired by Micro Focus for $40.7 million. more...

Trend Toward Insourcing COBOL Development and Support

Wachovia Bank is part of a trend to bring COBOL development and support inhouse. The goal is to manage risk and reduce costs. more...

COBOL Dominance Continues

90 percent of financial transactions and 75 percent of transactions generally are processed by COBOL programs acording to an article in Reg Developer, quoting research by Ovum. more...

Mainframes Save Money

IBM Illuminata Study shows that mainframe Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is between five and 60 percent better than Unix, Linux, and Windows approaches. One mainframe can out perform dozens of blades and grids of distributed systems. more...

SQL Tutorial

Infogoal, publisher of the COBOL Center and other computer related information websites announces the release of a new website that focuses on SQL. Visitors will be able to learn SQL through straight forward examples as well as see the syntax of SQL statements. more...

COBOL Future 2007 Conference

The Neatherlands, World Trade Center,
April 26, 2007. The third annual international conference on the future of COBOL had a theme of service oriented architecture (SOA),. The conference focused on legacy systems development and the combination between COBOL, Java, .NET, and WebSphere. The possibilities for outsourcing COBOL were discussed as well. Sponsors and presenters included:

Acucorp

IBM and MainframeBusiness.com

MetaWare

Seagull Software

Software Improvement Group.

When Legacy Programmers Disappear

How do we deal with the fact that we are constantly developing new application development technologies and thus constantly developing legacy issues for ourselves? An interview with Forrester analyst Phil Murphy reveals approaches to protecting yourself not just from the disappearance of COBOL programmers but also from disappearances of every other kind. Optimize Magazine.

Australia Adopts COBOL Tax Software

The Australian Tax Office is aquiring a COBOL based tax software system supplied by Accenture in this $500 Million project. The software is based on a system used by US Office of Tax and Revenue. Concerns that COBOL lacks flexibility and is an outdated technology have been offset by the lower risk of proven technology. Australian IT.

COBOL and Cool-Gen Developers are hot. The project requires several consultants at premium rates. Australian IT.

Microfocus Offers Webinars

Microfocus offers numerous webinars with topics including:

Outsourcing
Mergers and Acquisitions
IT Governance

The Future of COBOL

Mike Murach, author and publisher of numerous computer books, explains the current state of COBOL - including: current and expanding uses, training, and future directions. more...

COBOL Supports Microsoft .NET Environment

The Microsoft .NET Environment is now supported by COBOL. Applications can be created that plug into the Windows and Internet.

Check these helpful links:

Fujitsu netCOBOL

Book: COBOL and Visual Basic on .NET

Book: Microsoft .NET for COBOL Programmers

Learn COBOL By Example

The COBOL Center with the help of its loyal readers has assembled numerous example COBOL programs that can help you to learn about COBOL. more...

Long Live the Mainframe

eWeek article reports on encouraging mainframe trends. IBM reports three consecutive quarters of profits for its mainframe business. New customers are being attracted to the mainframe as it supports everything from a massive multiplayer game server to virtualized Linux servers. more...

Bright Future for COBOL

TechWorld article reminds us of the huge code base of COBOL and that 70 percent of transactional systems are in COBOL. more...

COBOL on the Front Burner

Computerworld, a leading IT publication, has recognizes the importance of COBOL:

COBOL Coders: Going, Going, Gone?

COBOL Not Dead Yet

Jon Ericson in Doctor Dobb&s Portal has written a number of posts:

COBOL and Then Some

COBOL &Nuf Said

COBOL Job-1

The articles refer to Gartner research that shows that COBOL continues to be widely used for both maintenance and new development.

Legacy Skills Debate Rages

The legacy skills and COBOL debate continues. Is COBOL dead or alive? Is it worth developing COBOL skills? The lead story is published at news.com. Check out some of the arguments at discussion thread.

COBOL is clearly continues to be a major language. Acording to industry sources there is an investment of $1.5 to $5 trillion in COBOL. The number of COBOL transactions executed daily exceeds the number of hits on the Internet. The number of visitors to the COBOL Center remains as great as ever.

Some of the debate points are brought forward by developers with Java and C# skills who say that COBOL is inefficient and "ugly". The use of COBOL is more of a management issue than the need to develop in the prettiest language.

Stay tuned to The COBOL Center for more on the place of COBOL in the early twenty first century.

Murach Publishes Mainframe COBOL Book

Mike Murach & Associates, an industry leading computer book publisher, announced publication of a new book entitled Murach's Mainframe COBOL (www.murach.com). Today, 90% of all COBOL is running on IBM mainframes so the book focuses on the COBOL skills needed in IBM mainframe shops. more...

Is COBOL The 18-Wheeler of the Web?

eWeek and Peter Coffee, show how COBOL and Web Services are a natural fit. more...

ComputerWorld article shows that COBOL is alive and well on the web. more...

COBOL Programmers Back in the Game

IT World, shows that COBOL has many uses in todays world - such as Internet back end processing and Legacy data extraction. Billions of dollars worth of data are accessible through COBOL. more...

Sam Mikes, of LinuxWorld, has written an articles about COBOL use in web scripting, "I have seen the future, and it is COBOL?". more...

COBOL and Open Systems

The COmmon Business Oriented Language - COBOL is the original language of Open Systems so it makes sense that today the language is a leader in Linux/Unix and the Open Systems movement. The trend is also for a movement from proprietary mainframes to Linux - a big boost for COBOL.

Check these helpful links:

Infoworld - Micro Focus Unveils COBOL Migration for Linux