RM/COBOL 2014

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 17 March 2011]

Microfocus will support RM/Cobol till 2014 and there is no end-of-life announcement.

What does this mean for future compatibility with new versions of operating systems ?

What if the current RM/COBOL V12 is not compatible with a future Microsoft Server release ?
Is there going to be a new RM/COBOL version for that ?
What happens if customers who use our application with an RM/Cobol V12 runtime
wants to upgrade their OS to this new version ?

How long will we be able to sell RM/COBOL runtimes (with a support contract) ? Also after 2014 ?

I'm worried about the same issue, what will happen with ALL our apps when future OS are launched to the market?

What if for example Microsoft creates Windows 2015 and it's not compatible with our RM-Cobol software? Are you forcing us to convert it to Visual Cobol, for wich we have to redesign EVERYTHING??? For companies like ours that have been using rm for more than 15 years this is a HUGE effort that can't afford.

Please, can somebody from Microfocus answer and try to clarify the situation? Thanks.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 17 March 2011]

Microfocus will support RM/Cobol till 2014 and there is no end-of-life announcement.

What does this mean for future compatibility with new versions of operating systems ?

What if the current RM/COBOL V12 is not compatible with a future Microsoft Server release ?
Is there going to be a new RM/COBOL version for that ?
What happens if customers who use our application with an RM/Cobol V12 runtime
wants to upgrade their OS to this new version ?

How long will we be able to sell RM/COBOL runtimes (with a support contract) ? Also after 2014 ?

I'm worried about the same issue, what will happen with ALL our apps when future OS are launched to the market?

What if for example Microsoft creates Windows 2015 and it's not compatible with our RM-Cobol software? Are you forcing us to convert it to Visual Cobol, for wich we have to redesign EVERYTHING??? For companies like ours that have been using rm for more than 15 years this is a HUGE effort that can't afford.

Please, can somebody from Microfocus answer and try to clarify the situation? Thanks.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 17 March 2011]

Microfocus will support RM/Cobol till 2014 and there is no end-of-life announcement.

What does this mean for future compatibility with new versions of operating systems ?

What if the current RM/COBOL V12 is not compatible with a future Microsoft Server release ?
Is there going to be a new RM/COBOL version for that ?
What happens if customers who use our application with an RM/Cobol V12 runtime
wants to upgrade their OS to this new version ?

How long will we be able to sell RM/COBOL runtimes (with a support contract) ? Also after 2014 ?

I'm worried about the same issue, what will happen with ALL our apps when future OS are launched to the market?

What if for example Microsoft creates Windows 2015 and it's not compatible with our RM-Cobol software? Are you forcing us to convert it to Visual Cobol, for wich we have to redesign EVERYTHING??? For companies like ours that have been using rm for more than 15 years this is a HUGE effort that can't afford.

Please, can somebody from Microfocus answer and try to clarify the situation? Thanks.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 17 March 2011]

Microfocus will support RM/Cobol till 2014 and there is no end-of-life announcement.

What does this mean for future compatibility with new versions of operating systems ?

What if the current RM/COBOL V12 is not compatible with a future Microsoft Server release ?
Is there going to be a new RM/COBOL version for that ?
What happens if customers who use our application with an RM/Cobol V12 runtime
wants to upgrade their OS to this new version ?

How long will we be able to sell RM/COBOL runtimes (with a support contract) ? Also after 2014 ?

This is a great opportunity to make public the answers we gave when Renzo from EASYPAY visited us on April 7th in Newbury to discuss the RM/COBOL and Visual COBOL future roadmap.

We continue to support RM/COBOL and so it will continue to work on the platforms you currently have it working on, as we look forward to new operating systems, we intend to move as many of our COBOL products forward as it is feasible for us to do. However, any discontinuities or step changes in the way these operating systems work may cause us some difficulties and we may not be able to take some of the older products forward. What we will do though is make it as easy for our users to move forward to a newer COBOL product as we can reasonably do. Easy in both technical and commercial terms

I have put the answers in stream below,

What does this mean for future compatibility with new versions of operating systems? What if the current RM/COBOL V12 is not compatible with a future Microsoft Server release?

We intend to provide support for new operating systems in as many of our COBOL products as our resources will allow. Visual COBOL will be the first product ported/tested on any new O/S. Micro Focus will work on and test RM/COBOL 12 on new versions of Operating Systems. If during these tests we find major technical issues - We will analyze the total amount of work for the eventual modifications. If for one OS the modifications represent too much development work to ensure the compatibility of RM/COBOL on this OS, customers will be advised to move to Visual COBOL – If they need this new operating platform

Visual COBOL has been built to be the next generation COBOL development environment product family for ALL COBOL users whether they are on ACUCOBOL-GT, RM/COBOL, Micro Focus COBOL or with a competitor. We are intent on making this the best possible COBOL development environment and our customers tell us that’s what we seem to have achieved.
We are working with RM/COBOL customers like Easypay to improve the compatibility of Visual COBOL with RM/COBOL, with the release 4 we have implemented:

Support for RM/COBOL File Handler
Support for XML Extension
Support for several runtime functions like: C$ConvertAnsiToOem, C$ConvertOemToAnsi, C$DARG, C$Delay, C$GetEnv, C$GetNativeCharset, C$LogicalAnd,C$LogicalComplement, C$LogicalOr, C$LogicalShiftLeft, C$LogicalShiftRight, C$LogicalXor, C$NARG, C$RERR, C$SetEnv, DELETE, RENAME,..

And other runtime functions will be driven by customer requests – what do you want next?

Is there going to be a new RM/COBOL version for that?

YES, we will continue to provide WebSyncs for RM/COBOL V12.

What happens if customers who use our application with an RM/Cobol V12 runtime want to upgrade their OS to this new version?

They will have to plan a move to Visual COBOL, If we don’t support this new OS.

How long will we be able to sell RM/COBOL runtimes (with a support contract) ? Also after 2014 ?

There is no limit for that, for Micro Focus COBOL, ACUCOBOL-GT, RM/COBOL, customer can still buy current versions. There is no sundown or end of life date for these product lines. And even when a product reaches the Sundown or End of Service state, users can continue to use the products although, clearly, less maintenance will be applied in accordance with the standard Micro Focus Support Agreements. We have many users of products happily using them years after they officially became “End of Service.”

I hope it answers your questions


Best regards

Dominique SACRE

Product Director