Micro Focus CEO Wants Partners To Help Sweat Cobol

As the CEO of Micro Focus, Tony Hill sees Cobol applications on mainframes as assets that IT organizations can leverage on new, more nimble Windows, Linux and Unix platforms running Web services technologies. Hill says Micro Focus is dedicated to providing tools for that migration -- and earlier this month, Micro Focus launched a variant of its tools that support the Microsoft.Net framework. In an interview with CRN Editor-in-Chief Michael Vizard, Hill said Micro Focus' greatest asset is its ability to help IT organization sweat the maximum value out of existing applications.

CRN: Why should companies begin thinking about running Cobol applications on Windows?

Hill: The overriding business imperative that most companies have is to somehow become more agile. They want to reduce costs on the one hand, yet on the other hand be able to respond to market opportunities. But they are also concerned about risk. I think businesses are sort of managing their way around that triangle that covers reduced cost, increase responsiveness and minimal risk. Given that cost- constrained environment, Cobol assets become not an albatross but actually something that you can use to drive the business forward.

CRN: How does Micro Focus factor into that equation?

Hill: Micro Focus is about helping customers take those assets -- applications, data, people skills, processes -- and open them to contemporary platforms. Those assets will run on Windows, Linux or Unix using contemporary software architectures typically based on Web services. My overall argument is that the macro-economic landscape is causing customers to think about their legacy application in a different way. They view it as an asset and look to sweat value from it. At Micro Focus, we are trying to help them do just that.

CRN: How does Micro Focus accomplish that?

Hill: One of our products is called Net Express, which is a Windows-based development environment that helps you build Web services. Because our customers have a strong Cobol legacy within Net Express, they can build Web services written in Cobol, which are in turn called by a Cobol program. Often people think that Web services means implicitly some use of Java or .Net. We're demonstrating that Web services are not only platform agnostic but also language agnostic. We also open up the world of J2EE so our customers can build Web services in Cobol to access J2EE-compliant architectures. We also have a new variant of Net Express that does all the things we just talked about but within a Microsoft.Net framework. We essentially make Cobol a language within the .Net framework alongside a language like Visual Basic and C Sharp. So you can be writing in Cobol just like you always have done if you're one of our customers, and yet get the full benefit of the .Net framework.

CRN: How is Micro Focus doing as a company?

Hill: We've seen our revenues grow the last year by 10 percent over the prior year. I'm sure you realize most software companies are seeing negative growth and revenues are declining, so I think the strategy is playing well with our customers.

CRN: What's your take on tools for converting Cobol applications into another language?

Hill: I think that's philosophically a very bad idea. If you think about what's happening, you've got the legacy application that you probably know quite well. And there is absolutely no need to convert it into Java. It can function quite well in Cobol and in fact Cobol is a very portable language. We could have Cobol running on pretty much every contemporary platform in every software architecture. We always felt that those attempts to translate Cobol into something else were misguided. We look to re-use Cobol assets through standards like Web Services.

CRN: Who are your strategic partners?

Hill: We work with the major platform providers. We are the standard Cobol for HP and for Sun. Both of those companies resell our Cobol to their customers. Thirdly, IBM has a tremendously strong focus on Linux and we are effectively IBM's Cobol on Linux solution on all of their platforms, going from the Intel Series all the way up to Linux on the mainframe. So on all of those platforms today if you went to IBM and said I would like Cobol, essentially you get Micro Focus Cobol.

CRN: Where does the channel fit in your model?

Hill: We also work through classical resellers. In the United States some of our customers like to purchase through people like Software Spectrum. We also have special relationships with a number of companies for the Federal government. And we also have strong links with systems integrators. We have a very rich and varied partnering model. We have a 100 percent partner-centric strategy.

CRN: What's next for you in terms of expanding those relationships?

Hill: We're in the process of building up those relationships particularly with systems integrators, and looking for them to resell our technology. Our discussions with Microsoft are also interesting. They, of course, also have a very strong partner deployment strategy. We're looking to form a three-way relationship -- Microsoft, systems integrators and Micro Focus -- and we're actively talking with a whole range of both global and local systems integrators about the opportunities that might create for everyone. We're also keen to build that relationship up with IBM.

CRN: Are the application server vendors prime partner candidates for Micro Focus?

Hill: We would look to work very closely with application servers from IBM and BEA. But we are also mid-way through developing some technology that will give our customers some wider options to deal with application servers. As always we're committed to whatever the de facto standards are. But we do also believe there are opportunities for Cobol-centric customers to work with some application server technologies of our own.

CRN: So what's your biggest challenge?

Hill: We're doubling the number of people in our partner-facing organization, both in Europe and in North America. And one of the things we'll be doing is bringing some technology to market that is only available through partners. Our direct sales force will not be able to sell it. So the big project at the moment is accelerating our move to becoming truly partner-centric. This is one of the areas in which we're significantly increasing our head count.