Cobol's future - Microfocus, actually

I've liked Microfocus Cobol for a long time now.
It's like a well-known & used workshop tool.

The way things seem to me, very few students learn Cobol
and the intake of new users is probably minimal.
The writing's been on the wall for a good while.

Considering the shift in policy by, say, Oracle in making their
products freely available - for no money - I hope Microfocus
take a good look at their evaluation of how best to trade.

I'd suggest, fwiw, that MF could adopt a free distribution along
the same lines: cut the initial charges and rely on support and
maintenance.

Perhaps the short-to-medium term 'sales' wouldn't dazzle the world,
however, it may well recruit more _users_ of their Cobol.
It would also mean sharpening up their strategy & will for survival.
Without change, I fear they will simply wither on the vine.

Difficult to sell to the bean-counters, though.

Regards

Michael

They used to allow free distribution of the runtime system on
differernt machines
for the Net Express compiler, I think version 2.0 and 3.0 for windows
platform, am
not sure why they had a change of heart with version 4.0, though. I
wonder how
they feel about Fujitsu's free 32-bit cobol compilers (students
version), when they
have a Net Express version that's geared toward students for about
$99.00 USD.

personally, I think the Net Express cobol compiler's much superior than
Fujitsu's
cobol compiler, also the IDE is much easier to navigate and the runtime
execution
is obviously faster, especially when I use the compilation directive
align"8", which
optimizes the machine code and allows for compatibility with 64-bit
versions.

Jimmy,

What Micro Focus charges for the distributed runtime modules is not
expensive, the
problem with their policy though is that they want the customer to
purchase a minimum
of TEN licenses, for each time they need a license for a new machine. I
think the price
for a pack of TEN is about $1,100.00 USD.  I think they should make the
minimum only
two per pack though, this way they can increase the circle of Cobol,
and mabe capture
more market share than acuCobol, Fijitsu and Liant as well. Regards.

Kellie.

Kellie Fitton wrote:
> Jimmy,
>
> What Micro Focus charges for the distributed runtime modules is not
> expensive, the
> problem with their policy though is that they want the customer to
> purchase a minimum
> of TEN licenses, for each time they need a license for a new machine. I
> think the price
> for a pack of TEN is about $1,100.00 USD.  I think they should make the
> minimum only
> two per pack though, this way they can increase the circle of Cobol,
> and mabe capture
> more market share than acuCobol, Fijitsu and Liant as well. Regards.

Kellie,

OK that makes sense. Although not au fait with current pricing, you can
see why in the back of my mind I was thinking how much you had to shell
out up front. Now here's the problem; if and when I distribute, I'd want
it on a site for prospective users to take a look - then if interested,
we can get serious about runtime fees. If I make a good buck, then I
can't grumble too much at M/F making a buck too - I just include it in
my overall price.

On a personal basis they can be flexible, once they know the situation.
I recall somebody saying if I produce a small 'gizmo' retailing at $50,
what's the score ? Don't recall the answer. I think there was a
follow-up to accommodate the query.

Jimmy

Thane wrote:

>Oracle also charges HEFTY per connected user fees (or high site license
>fees for unlimited users).  They also charge different license fees per
>processor.
>
>
>
Ah - the software is free, however.
This 'clearer' story lacks a bit of clarity    :-)
How do corporates get in the position of paying these fees?
Not doubting that they do, but is it fair to assume that these
fees are for the support they've signed up for?

If Microfocus gave away their product, they could charge for support, too,
just like Oracle...... ?

Regards

Michael

> All of Oracle's databases are free to download (9i to 10g, lots of
> platforms). They charge for maintenance (fixes) & support.

It may well be that you can download certain versions of Oracle, but
that doesn't give you a free licence to use it.  You can download the
pricing PDF from the Oracle site which shows that a per CPU server
price may be $US40,000 plus per user fees of $US800.00 and that is
before options are added.

There are 'Personal edition' and 'Lite' which are quite restricted and
licences are $400 and $100 respectivly per user.

> Sun's Solaris is also free.

Solaris on a Sun server is paid for as part of the equipment cost.
Solaris on Intel I can't comment on, it may be free.

> I think Sybase may be, too. There must be others, but I haven't
looked.

There are many free database products, such as Ingres, PostgreSQL,
MySQL and so on.  Sybase is not one of them.  You can get trial and
evaluation versions of Sybase.

On 30 Mar 2005 16:04:43 -0800, "Richard" <riplin@Azonic.co.nz> wrote:
 
>
>It may well be that you can download certain versions of Oracle, but
>that doesn't give you a free licence to use it.  You can download the
>pricing PDF from the Oracle site which shows that a per CPU server
>price may be $US40,000 plus per user fees of $US800.00 and that is
>before options are added.
You can download and develop freely. Only when you are deploying do
you need to buy any licenses.

>
>There are 'Personal edition' and 'Lite' which are quite restricted and
>licences are $400 and $100 respectivly per user.
> 
>
>Solaris on a Sun server is paid for as part of the equipment cost.
>Solaris on Intel I can't comment on, it may be free.
> 
>looked.
>
>There are many free database products, such as Ingres, PostgreSQL,
>MySQL and so on.  Sybase is not one of them.  You can get trial and
>evaluation versions of Sybase.



Frederico Fonseca
ema il: frederico_fonseca at syssoft-int.com

Thane wrote:

>Oracle also charges HEFTY per connected user fees (or high site license
>fees for unlimited users).  They also charge different license fees per
>processor.
>
>
>
Ah - the software is free, however.
This 'clearer' story lacks a bit of clarity    :-)
How do corporates get in the position of paying these fees?
Not doubting that they do, but is it fair to assume that these
fees are for the support they've signed up for?

If Microfocus gave away their product, they could charge for support, too,
just like Oracle...... ?

Regards

Michael

Oracle also charges HEFTY per connected user fees (or high site license
fees for unlimited users).  They also charge different license fees per
processor.

Thane wrote:

>Oracle also charges HEFTY per connected user fees (or high site license
>fees for unlimited users).  They also charge different license fees per
>processor.
>
>
>
Ah - the software is free, however.
This 'clearer' story lacks a bit of clarity    :-)
How do corporates get in the position of paying these fees?
Not doubting that they do, but is it fair to assume that these
fees are for the support they've signed up for?

If Microfocus gave away their product, they could charge for support, too,
just like Oracle...... ?

Regards

Michael