Enterprise Application Development Capability expands by Micro Focus and Microsoft Partner

Launch Visual COBOL 2.0 beta with Visual Studio 2012 RC to improve application development experience, productivity and accelerate time to market

Micro Focus , the leading provider of enterprise application modernization, testing and management solutions, in partnership with Microsoft, today announced it will jointly launch Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.0 beta with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 RC. Micro Focus' Visual COBOL enables application developers to re-use, enhance, and extend enterprise COBOL applications, alongside other Microsoft language platforms, such as C#, Visual Basic, and ASP.NET -- all from within the leading industry standard Integrated Development Environment - Visual Studio.

Millions of organizations around the world continue to rely on COBOL-based applications to run their business. Micro Focus' Visual COBOL technology already provides a unique, integrated, and industry standard environment to develop these critical applications. COBOL developers and those already familiar with general Visual Studio development techniques will now be able to take advantage of Visual Studio 2012 RC to take those applications forward. Visual Studio levels the playing field for programming languages and Micro Focus is committed to ensuring that modern COBOL programming remains on par with any comparative technology.

Key benefits of Visual COBOL 2.0 beta include:

-- Ensuring longevity by future-proofing business-critical applications deployed on the Windows platform

-- Increasing developer productivity, widening resource pools, and accelerating delivery cycles through its highly integrated development environment

-- Protecting existing investment and intellectual property by modernizing and enabling business applications for .NET and Azure platforms

Visual Studio 2012 RC is a significant delivery by Microsoft to improve the application development experience. Visual Studio 2012 RC is focused on improving developer productivity through faster performance, streamlined responsiveness and improved toolset capability. Visual Studio 2012 RC beta accelerates development time, improves team collaboration, and delivers the latest in UI enhancement through Metro-style interface development.

"With this announcement, Microsoft and Micro Focus are teaming up to provide the best value to all of our customers," said Kevin Brearley, Sr. Director of Product Management for Micro Focus. "Visual COBOL already delivers enterprise innovation for core business applications and now Visual COBOL 2.0 for Visual Studio 2012 RC provides the next generation of COBOL development products, designed for today's Visual Studio developer."

Visual COBOL 2.0 integrates within the Visual Studio 2012 IDE offering COBOL application developers the latest innovations for software development and also supports the latest .NET Framework, version 4.5, to leverage the new development capabilities of the .NET platform. Combining leadership in COBOL application development with the power of Microsoft Visual Studio we have delivered real innovation to the enterprise application developer.

"We're honored to have partners like Micro Focus working closely with us to build on the benefits Visual Studio 2012 RC offers the enterprise development community," said Tom Lindeman, Director of the Visual Studio Industry Partner Program. "Core to Visual Studio 2012 RC is its focus on integrating teams, streamlining development and providing developers a complete toolbox to build leading applications efficiently. Having Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.0 in that toolbox further ensures developers have exactly what they need to quickly build fast, stable, advanced applications."

The partnership between Microsoft and Micro Focus demonstrates the companies' ongoing commitment to lead technology innovation within the application development and modernization market. The joint beta launch of Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 RC and Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.0 delivers a significant advantage for today's enterprise application developer -- improving development experience, productivity and accelerating time to market.