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RM/Cobol runtime

  • January 27, 2020
  • 10 replies
  • 1 view
D

I have a UK user who wants to move an RM/Cobol app from a Unix box to Windows 10 PCs. I have been trying to get some info from Microfocus about price and availability for months. I have had contact with 4 different Microfocus employees but can't get an answer from any of them to the following question - "What is the price(UK Pounds) and availability of runcobol for Windows 10 PC 64 bit - 3 user license and  where can I buy if from)?". If anybody can help me I would be extremely grateful. Bob   

 

    10 replies

    Thomas Morrison
    • Thomas Morrison
    • Participating Frequently
    • January 27, 2020

    I have a UK user who wants to move an RM/Cobol app from a Unix box to Windows 10 PCs. I have been trying to get some info from Microfocus about price and availability for months. I have had contact with 4 different Microfocus employees but can't get an answer from any of them to the following question - "What is the price(UK Pounds) and availability of runcobol for Windows 10 PC 64 bit - 3 user license and  where can I buy if from)?". If anybody can help me I would be extremely grateful. Bob   

     

    It is definitely available.  Not sure who to contact in UK, but the RM/COBOL developers and support folks monitor this Forum, so perhaps you will get some action.  

    Tom Morrison, Consultant, South Carolina, USA
    D

    I have a UK user who wants to move an RM/Cobol app from a Unix box to Windows 10 PCs. I have been trying to get some info from Microfocus about price and availability for months. I have had contact with 4 different Microfocus employees but can't get an answer from any of them to the following question - "What is the price(UK Pounds) and availability of runcobol for Windows 10 PC 64 bit - 3 user license and  where can I buy if from)?". If anybody can help me I would be extremely grateful. Bob   

     

     wrote:

    I have a UK user who wants to move an RM/Cobol app from a Unix box to Windows 10 PCs. I have been trying to get some info from Microfocus about price and availability for months. I have had contact with 4 different Microfocus employees but can't get an answer from any of them to the following question - "What is the price(UK Pounds) and availability of runcobol for Windows 10 PC 64 bit - 3 user license and  where can I buy if from)?". If anybody can help me I would be extremely grateful. Bob   

     

    Below is a link to the form that allows you to contact Micro Focus Sales:

    Micro Focus Product Inquiries 

    **You will need to ensure that you select "RM/COBOL" as your product, and, "United Kingdom" as your Country in order to have the request routed as quickly as possible.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Please let us know, however, if you do not hear from a Sales Account Manager in regards to your submitted request.

    D

    It is definitely available.  Not sure who to contact in UK, but the RM/COBOL developers and support folks monitor this Forum, so perhaps you will get some action.  

    Tom, thank you for your help. I hope you are right and I get an answer to the question I've been pursuing since August 2109. In that time I've been in contact with 4 different people from what I think is the Microfocus Belfast office. They promise to sort it out but never do. In the old days which you will remember, I could speak to Jack Dale and he would sort it out for me.  Bob

    D
     wrote:

    I have a UK user who wants to move an RM/Cobol app from a Unix box to Windows 10 PCs. I have been trying to get some info from Microfocus about price and availability for months. I have had contact with 4 different Microfocus employees but can't get an answer from any of them to the following question - "What is the price(UK Pounds) and availability of runcobol for Windows 10 PC 64 bit - 3 user license and  where can I buy if from)?". If anybody can help me I would be extremely grateful. Bob   

     

    Below is a link to the form that allows you to contact Micro Focus Sales:

    Micro Focus Product Inquiries 

    **You will need to ensure that you select "RM/COBOL" as your product, and, "United Kingdom" as your Country in order to have the request routed as quickly as possible.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Please let us know, however, if you do not hear from a Sales Account Manager in regards to your submitted request.

    Steve, Thank you very much for your help. I've used your link and submitted the completed form. If you look at my reply to Tom, you will see how frustrated I am by this. However I just have a little feeling that your advice will produce a positive result!. I'll let you know.

    Thomas Morrison
    • Thomas Morrison
    • Participating Frequently
    • January 28, 2020

    Tom, thank you for your help. I hope you are right and I get an answer to the question I've been pursuing since August 2109. In that time I've been in contact with 4 different people from what I think is the Microfocus Belfast office. They promise to sort it out but never do. In the old days which you will remember, I could speak to Jack Dale and he would sort it out for me.  Bob

    You have the attention of Steve Jolivet, so you will get a response either from sales in UK or from him. Steve came over in the acquisition and is a top notch support person.

    Yes, I remember Jack well.
    Tom Morrison, Consultant, South Carolina, USA
    D
    You have the attention of Steve Jolivet, so you will get a response either from sales in UK or from him. Steve came over in the acquisition and is a top notch support person.

    Yes, I remember Jack well.
    Steve, Tom
    Following Steve's advice to fill out the enquiry form, I was asked to provide the following info to Blain Devlin, Acct Manager UK and Ireland - Cobol. I did that(see following) and it's going to cost my Customer £9,843 ($12875) and annually £2,214($2896) to supply a single user runtime license!!. I find that unbelievable.
     
    PS On my earlier contact to you I said 2109 when it should have been 2019. Perhaps that's what the prices will be in 2109!!!.
     
    Anyway thanks for your help but at those prices I'm going to have to find another solution.
     
    Bob
     
    ======================================================================================
     
     
     
     
    From Blain Devlin 29th Jan 09.20am
    Hi Bob,
     
    I personally have tried reaching out to you on several occasions last year, without any reply back so we closed down the initial enquiry as a result.
     
    I need to understand how you plan on recompiling from 32 to 64 bit without a development licence?  Also, are there any 3rd parties involved, are you distributing the application freely or for profit?  I ask because if you wish to distribute our IP, you will need to do so as an ISV as per our software EULA.  Micro Focus need to ensure that both our IP is protected, and that our customers are not left in a position of being out of compliance.
    For now, I cannot quote you a price without the above information being discussed.
     
    Kind regards,
     
    Blain Devlin
    Account Manager UK & Ireland – COBOL
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
     
    Blain,             sent by me on Jan 29th 16.34
     
    I am enquiring on behalf of a fully licensed RM/Cobol user - Bullimores Sand and Gravel. You sent them an email on 5th September  2019 at 14.09. Paul Marshall passed it on to me for comment and you can see my reply in the attached email dated 9th September 2019. Paul had to get involved because whoever was handling the case at the time(Darren Robinson or Aldofo Madera?)told me he wasn't allowed to converse by email with me because of my email address ie yahoo.co.uk (unbelievable but true). Briefly Bullimores have a RM/Cobol app for enquiring on Invoice history which is currently running under Unix and they would like to switch it to run on a Windows 10, 64 bit PC. My company Dual Computer Services developed a complete bespoke software package for Bullimores many years ago using RM/Cobol on a Unix platform. All that bespoke software is the property of Bullimores. Bullimores have now switched to another software package but were unable to switch the Invoice History which they must retain to meet HMRC requirements. So to enable them to switch off their Unix box (very old and expensive to maintain), they asked me to look into the program implications of switching Invoice History to W10. So I have looked at the programs involved on my Unix box (I have all the Bullimore progs on it) and changed the appropriate ones to run on a PC. These changes relate to printing. I then compiled the changed program on my Unix box using my fully licensed RM/COBOL development system, copied the object program and the data files over from Unix to an old Windows XP desktop  which has a licensed RM/Cobol runtime on it and it runs perfectly. That easy migration was always a very strong feature of RM/Cobol. Are you telling me that is no longer the case, ie that a program compiled on another platform won't run on a 64bit W10 PC?. There will be no further development required when the Invoice History is migrated to W10 because it's History and therefore won't change. I hope this clarifies the situation and we can make progress.
     
    Bob  
     
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
    Hi Robert,     Received 30th Jan 9.01am
     
    If I may answer these in order?  Please see my responses below:
     

    ·        I cannot locate in our system any licences belonging to Bullmores Sand & Gravel, do you happen to have a historic key or registered serial number please?

    ·        If this is compiled under Unix at present, and you are needing to switch this to Windows, it would require a recompilation as Unix & Windows scripting, linkages etc are completely different, and there are no guarantees on a 64bit Modern OS that this will work.

    ·        New licences of RM/COBOL are now licenced on a per core basis (physical cores on server/machine) rather than per user.  This has been the case since the release of our MF17 EULA, a copy of which I can send across.

    ·        The version of RM that you had previously is no longer available now (RM9/10, or even 12.04, as we are now up to 12.16)

    ·        Currently, a new licence of RM Runtime per core is £9,843 per licence and £2,214.68 for the first years support (which we have to include with all licence sales)

     
    I just want to be sure you have the correct information at hand before making a decision, and that this clarifies your points raised below.
     
    Kind regards,
     
    Blain Devlin
    Account Manager UK & Ireland – COBOL
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
    Blain,      sent by me on 30th Jan 9.25am
     
    Thank you for your reply. I can get you the serial numbers of the RM/Cobol software if it comes to that. However if you are telling me that it would cost £9,843 and £2,214 pa to use runcobol on a standalone PC I suspect the answer from Bullimores would be no way(am I right Paul?). It would be cheaper to convert the specific Cobol program and data files to run under C# and SQL using Visual Studio as the IDE and there would be more of a degree of future proofing in that solution. So I am right - £9,843 up front and £2,214 to acquire runcobol for a standalone PC?.
     
    Thank you
     
    Bob
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As at 20.00 Jan 30th UK time I've had no response to the last email.
    Thomas Morrison
    • Thomas Morrison
    • Participating Frequently
    • January 31, 2020
    Steve, Tom
    Following Steve's advice to fill out the enquiry form, I was asked to provide the following info to Blain Devlin, Acct Manager UK and Ireland - Cobol. I did that(see following) and it's going to cost my Customer £9,843 ($12875) and annually £2,214($2896) to supply a single user runtime license!!. I find that unbelievable.
     
    PS On my earlier contact to you I said 2109 when it should have been 2019. Perhaps that's what the prices will be in 2109!!!.
     
    Anyway thanks for your help but at those prices I'm going to have to find another solution.
     
    Bob
     
    ======================================================================================
     
     
     
     
    From Blain Devlin 29th Jan 09.20am
    Hi Bob,
     
    I personally have tried reaching out to you on several occasions last year, without any reply back so we closed down the initial enquiry as a result.
     
    I need to understand how you plan on recompiling from 32 to 64 bit without a development licence?  Also, are there any 3rd parties involved, are you distributing the application freely or for profit?  I ask because if you wish to distribute our IP, you will need to do so as an ISV as per our software EULA.  Micro Focus need to ensure that both our IP is protected, and that our customers are not left in a position of being out of compliance.
    For now, I cannot quote you a price without the above information being discussed.
     
    Kind regards,
     
    Blain Devlin
    Account Manager UK & Ireland – COBOL
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
     
    Blain,             sent by me on Jan 29th 16.34
     
    I am enquiring on behalf of a fully licensed RM/Cobol user - Bullimores Sand and Gravel. You sent them an email on 5th September  2019 at 14.09. Paul Marshall passed it on to me for comment and you can see my reply in the attached email dated 9th September 2019. Paul had to get involved because whoever was handling the case at the time(Darren Robinson or Aldofo Madera?)told me he wasn't allowed to converse by email with me because of my email address ie yahoo.co.uk (unbelievable but true). Briefly Bullimores have a RM/Cobol app for enquiring on Invoice history which is currently running under Unix and they would like to switch it to run on a Windows 10, 64 bit PC. My company Dual Computer Services developed a complete bespoke software package for Bullimores many years ago using RM/Cobol on a Unix platform. All that bespoke software is the property of Bullimores. Bullimores have now switched to another software package but were unable to switch the Invoice History which they must retain to meet HMRC requirements. So to enable them to switch off their Unix box (very old and expensive to maintain), they asked me to look into the program implications of switching Invoice History to W10. So I have looked at the programs involved on my Unix box (I have all the Bullimore progs on it) and changed the appropriate ones to run on a PC. These changes relate to printing. I then compiled the changed program on my Unix box using my fully licensed RM/COBOL development system, copied the object program and the data files over from Unix to an old Windows XP desktop  which has a licensed RM/Cobol runtime on it and it runs perfectly. That easy migration was always a very strong feature of RM/Cobol. Are you telling me that is no longer the case, ie that a program compiled on another platform won't run on a 64bit W10 PC?. There will be no further development required when the Invoice History is migrated to W10 because it's History and therefore won't change. I hope this clarifies the situation and we can make progress.
     
    Bob  
     
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
    Hi Robert,     Received 30th Jan 9.01am
     
    If I may answer these in order?  Please see my responses below:
     

    ·        I cannot locate in our system any licences belonging to Bullmores Sand & Gravel, do you happen to have a historic key or registered serial number please?

    ·        If this is compiled under Unix at present, and you are needing to switch this to Windows, it would require a recompilation as Unix & Windows scripting, linkages etc are completely different, and there are no guarantees on a 64bit Modern OS that this will work.

    ·        New licences of RM/COBOL are now licenced on a per core basis (physical cores on server/machine) rather than per user.  This has been the case since the release of our MF17 EULA, a copy of which I can send across.

    ·        The version of RM that you had previously is no longer available now (RM9/10, or even 12.04, as we are now up to 12.16)

    ·        Currently, a new licence of RM Runtime per core is £9,843 per licence and £2,214.68 for the first years support (which we have to include with all licence sales)

     
    I just want to be sure you have the correct information at hand before making a decision, and that this clarifies your points raised below.
     
    Kind regards,
     
    Blain Devlin
    Account Manager UK & Ireland – COBOL
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
    Blain,      sent by me on 30th Jan 9.25am
     
    Thank you for your reply. I can get you the serial numbers of the RM/Cobol software if it comes to that. However if you are telling me that it would cost £9,843 and £2,214 pa to use runcobol on a standalone PC I suspect the answer from Bullimores would be no way(am I right Paul?). It would be cheaper to convert the specific Cobol program and data files to run under C# and SQL using Visual Studio as the IDE and there would be more of a degree of future proofing in that solution. So I am right - £9,843 up front and £2,214 to acquire runcobol for a standalone PC?.
     
    Thank you
     
    Bob
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As at 20.00 Jan 30th UK time I've had no response to the last email.

    Bob,

    I have my clients order their RM products directly; I never contact Micro Focus on behalf of a customer.  I understand that you were seeking information for your customer, but this seems to confuse some folks in sales.  So, better to have the order come directly from your customer.

    The customer wants a single user runtime for Windows.  There is no need to specify 32- or 64-bit since bit-ness is not an issue.  My guess is that you should also have the customer specify that this is for a single user Windows 10 system, not Windows Server.  [The core pricing model has been no end of confusion.]

    You can tell from the questions asked that the sales person is trying to fit the Micro Focus COBOL model onto your specification.  Keeping the request simple (RM/COBOL Runtime for Windows 10 - no server involved) will probably help.  The sales person is incorrect - no recompilation is necessary, since that portability you described is still an attribute of RM/COBOL.

    Your customer's RM/COBOL installation probably predates the acquisition of the RM product line by Micro Focus.  Just grab a screen shot of the output of a simple runcobol command line; the output contains the license number.

    Good luck!

    Tom Morrison, Consultant, South Carolina, USA
    D

    Bob,

    I have my clients order their RM products directly; I never contact Micro Focus on behalf of a customer.  I understand that you were seeking information for your customer, but this seems to confuse some folks in sales.  So, better to have the order come directly from your customer.

    The customer wants a single user runtime for Windows.  There is no need to specify 32- or 64-bit since bit-ness is not an issue.  My guess is that you should also have the customer specify that this is for a single user Windows 10 system, not Windows Server.  [The core pricing model has been no end of confusion.]

    You can tell from the questions asked that the sales person is trying to fit the Micro Focus COBOL model onto your specification.  Keeping the request simple (RM/COBOL Runtime for Windows 10 - no server involved) will probably help.  The sales person is incorrect - no recompilation is necessary, since that portability you described is still an attribute of RM/COBOL.

    Your customer's RM/COBOL installation probably predates the acquisition of the RM product line by Micro Focus.  Just grab a screen shot of the output of a simple runcobol command line; the output contains the license number.

    Good luck!

    Tom. Steve,

    I have now been given the name of a 5th person to contact  -  David Hunter,  Manager Cobol direct and ISV team for Europe. When I started out on this journey I volunteered to find out for Bullimores who to contact so they could buy a runtime for a stand alone 64 bit Windows 10 PC. I was then going to pass the relevant info over to Bullimores so they could do the deal direct. I never ever expected it to be so difficult. Anyway I'll contact David Hunter next week. I'll let you know how I get on. Have a good weekend. In 2hrs 30mins the UK leaves the European Union so I think I'll go down to my local pub to drink a toast to the future and also to try and get "runcobol for Windows 64 bit PC" out of my mind for 48 hours!.

    Bob Greasley

     

    Thomas Morrison
    • Thomas Morrison
    • Participating Frequently
    • February 1, 2020

    Tom. Steve,

    I have now been given the name of a 5th person to contact  -  David Hunter,  Manager Cobol direct and ISV team for Europe. When I started out on this journey I volunteered to find out for Bullimores who to contact so they could buy a runtime for a stand alone 64 bit Windows 10 PC. I was then going to pass the relevant info over to Bullimores so they could do the deal direct. I never ever expected it to be so difficult. Anyway I'll contact David Hunter next week. I'll let you know how I get on. Have a good weekend. In 2hrs 30mins the UK leaves the European Union so I think I'll go down to my local pub to drink a toast to the future and also to try and get "runcobol for Windows 64 bit PC" out of my mind for 48 hours!.

    Bob Greasley

     

    Bob,

    I hope that works - both the new contact and the trip to the pub!

    Tom

    Tom Morrison, Consultant, South Carolina, USA
    D

    Bob,

    I hope that works - both the new contact and the trip to the pub!

    Tom

    Hi, we've now resolved the situation of obtaining runcobol for Windows 10. Finally got help from the 6th contact at MicroFocus and bought 10 user license for £536 ($650 approx) plus £121 ($150 approx) annual maintenance - a bit different from original quotes of  $9843 and $2214!. Installed it on W10 PC, with data files and program objects lifted directly from SCO Unix and everything works fine on the W10 PC (as we all thought it should). Software download from MicroFocus is a bit tricky, you are referred to videos which are supposed to help you. However when you click on the link to look at the videos nothing happens. Managed to sort it out without help from the videos. Thanks for your help especially Steve and Tom.

    Bob at dualcs

     

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