Re: "Goto statement considered superfluous"

From: Chuck Stevens (charles.stevens_at_unisys.com)
Date: 09/28/04 

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 09:35:11 -0700

"Robert Wagner" <robert@wagner.net.yourmammaharvests> wrote in message
news:r98hl0dbmscos3tce2sl0bedcud90efdqj@4ax.com...

> >RW> The ES7000 compiler looks like a rebadged Micro Focus.
> >
> > ... Where did you find such information?
>
> Chuck Stevens' response is definitive.

Not necessarily. I don't work on ES7000, though I am in physical proximity
to many who do. I am totally unaware of any COBOL compiler offerings
provided by, or through, Unisys for the ES7000; I believe the basic position
for such things is that, aside from the tools Unisys *does* provide, the
user is expected to obtain whatever he feels appropriate for his
environment, and that includes compilers. Unisys may recommend or suggest
solutions for the customer's environment, but doesn't, so far as I know,
resell such offerings.
> I got that impression from this Web page:
>
>
http://www.unisys.com/products/es7000__servers/business__solutions/windows__standardization/services.htm

The only mention I see of COBOL on this page is the following: "For
applications running COBOL and RPG code, we provide an automated code port
to simply re-host the 'ported' legacy application on the new Windows
platform, with back-end databases either intact or migrated to SQL Server,
Oracle or DB2."

>From that statement you have concluded that the COBOL compiler marketed by
Unisys is actually a rebadged Micro Focus offering. Interesting deduction,
that. Could you maybe clarify to us how the cited text leads
incontrovertibly to that conclusion?

> But here a Unisys manager says the tool is branded Micro Focus:
>
> http://www.microfocus.com/closeup/vol1issue3/partner.asp

Mentions of "Micro Focus" in this article: (1) "Customers invested
tremendous amounts of money and effort in developing custom applications
with Micro Focus COBOL to specifically address their particular business
processes ..." (2) "It is certainly a major factor for customers with
mainframes. Like most Micro Focus customers, they're ..." (3) "Basically,
any COBOL application is a candidate to migrate with our offering. Often the
motivation to migrate from these platforms is not necessarily driven by
lower TCO but by vendor support. If the application is doing the job then
migration to a Micro Focus Net Express for .NET product enables easy
migration of COBOL applications to the .NET framework ..." and (4) "You'd
be amazed at how fast batch programs run with Micro Focus Net Express on a
32-way ES7000 server with 2.8Ghz Intel processors and 64GB of memory.
Customers are pleasantly shocked!"

Only the third citation mentions a Unisys "offering" relating to COBOL, and
that offering isn't a rebadged Micro Focus product, or a COBOL compiler for
that matter. The "output" of that product appears to be at least
"tailorable" to Micro Focus Net Express, but it's not clear to me that
that's the only possible target for it (that may be the case, but even so,
it's irrelevant to my main point).

How does the cited text lead inexorably to the inescapable conclusion that
Unisys offers a Micro Focus product?

    -Chuck Stevens

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Is Micro Focus doomed?
    ... outside the group to which Micro Focus is selling their product. ... I have a problem with a sequential file which has variable records. ... With echoes of Carl Sagan "There are BILLIONS of lines coded in COBOL" we get from Gartner. ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: Micro Focus COBOL runtime, /clr:pure, etc.
    ... for Visual Studio will not run on a system which lacks the Micro Focus ... COBOL runtime DLLs. ... Tell me, though, does the Micro Focus COBOL compiler have any command ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: Cobol books & experiences
    ... Now neither of you indicate whether or not you are newbies to COBOL. ... 0-9655945-6-4 (without Micro Focus Net Express University Edition) ... I found it a little difficult to follow his references to RoomDriver1, then later RoomDriver2 etc. - difficult to explain - but nevertheless an excellent text. ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Micro Focus positioning (was: Liant (RM/Cobol) purchased by Micro-Focus
    ... Provide support and tools for shops that want to offload to Unix, Linux, ... future) some or all of the code in the original COBOL source ... I do not see Micro Focus currently providing paths AWAY ... smaller portion of current income that the first two. ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: Asynchonous (was: If you were inventing CoBOL...
    ... >own extensions as well (just as Chuck reports that Unisys does) ... Micro Focus has START and WAIT FOR and mutex functions that are ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)