Re: MF having issues?

Michael Wojcik wrote:
In article <1140796116.074700.17110@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, cblkid@xxxxxxxxx writes:

While I realize every company is having issues and this may not be a
huge thing it is none-the-less concerning to those of us who use their
products.


Micro Focus remains profitable. As the official announcement states,
this year has seen significantly fewer than the typical number of
large direct-license sales, which has resulted in revenue below
previous forecasts, but we see the long-term market as strong. (And
I'll note that the forecast is hardly catastrophic - it predicts total
revenue for the year at $140m, which is only about 7% off last year's,
according to the 2005 annual statement.)


Any thought as to how this is going to play out?


You may want to read the official statement on the Micro Focus
website, in the Investors area (http://investors.microfocus.com), if
you haven't already.

Michael,

I'm sure what you write is true. It's a while back that I looked at the Financial Statement and it sure looked healthy to me. That being said, and even with the 7% you mention - what doesn't jive to me is why Tony Hill left.

To the original enquirer, and I'm not in the know, just things I've picked up en route. Bill Klein *may* care to expand, if it doesn't make him reveal things he would rather not comment about from his time with M/F.

Just like Ryan McFarland - the company, (Micro Focus) was started by Messrs. A & B - one I think was Irish and the other English. It's a sad thing in IT but the innovators somehow just don't stay the course - the one big exception being Bill Gates.

They must have initially been doing OK and then, spread to USA. Obviously at some stage the money wasn't coming in - Goodbye Messrs. A & B. Then a while later M/F started talking a merger with 'X' (forget the name). This was the big Merant ***-up. Like all mergers there is a junior partner and this time it was M/F. Merant did a set of photographs of the Board Members, a rogues' gallery of who is who. Only one M/F employee was on the board - a female who had negotiated the merger on behalf of M/F.

Merant had at least two CEOs, perhaps a third. (From memory these guys were 'suits' from NY financial circles - not IT people). As someone observed, Merant 'wanted to milk Micro Focus for all it was worth', from COBOL products, but didn't want to go spending additional money. For whatever reasons, the Merant concept just didn't work.

By negotiation, the M/F 'Division' was sold off and became a private offshore company (in the Bahamas ?). Head office wise, the emphasis is in California, (which is where I think Michael is based). I can't be certain but I think this nonsense of runtime fees started late in the first M/F era but most certainly would have been endorsed, (alternatively started), by the Merant setup as a money printing machine.

To my surprise I saw that M/F (the private company), went public - not sure but I think Tony Hill was the first CEO. If you check his CV, Tony wasn't a newcomer - he was an M/F employee prior to the Merant merger. I know photographs can be deceptive - but Tony looks like a gentle man. He may well have had an iron stamina, on the other hand he may have been perceived as being too 'gentle'. It will remain a mystery.

Concentrating on Net Express I'm not at all clear exactly what other products M/F produces, although there are mainframe compilers and of course Server Express and Mainframe Express. In a short diplomatic reply when I wrote to Tony about runtime fees - there was no way they were going to bend and their policy suited their customer base. Now how that divvies up in terms of income I have no idea, and you don't get a clear picture from the financials. As to numbers involved, no clear picture and the following only represents a series of queries, not people (summarized from the Forum Boards) :-

194 - Application Server
1 - Application Builder
3 - APS for MVS
19 - Enterprise Server
5 - Enterprise Link
290 - Mainframe Express
5,473 - Net Express
307 - Object COBOL Development Suite
411 - Other Micro Focus Products (generalised queries)
54 - Revolve and Revolve Enterprise Edition
703 - Server Express

You can see where the emphasis is - not that there are necessarily more people using Net Express - but perhaps we are the dimwits who have more questions to post regarding GUIs and the Dialog System.

VISOC the pre-cursor arrived with OO and GUI classes - but not the Dialog System which existed in the DOS versions. They realized their mistake and re-introduced Dialog System when the product became Net Express.

Apart from the odd queries from Unix developers using Net Express, I'm going to guess that about 80% plus use the Dialog System. With canned demos for I think now all Windows Controls - there's a lot of copying and pasting goes on, (I suspect). But those Dialog System users can come unstuck when wanting to do something a little different - then they have to get a handle on the implications of 'invoke This....'.

Somebody queried M/F's commitment to Dialog System, (as opposed to Dialog Editor and GUI classes, which is what I use). Alan Wheeler down in California came on real strong. The numbers told them where to go, so he confirmed most emphatically that M/F was committed to supporting Dialog System and where necessary, enhancing it. N/E V 4.0 covers dotNet - and I believe the intention is that N/E V 5.0 will *include* a Dialog System link to dotNet. So they aren't backing-off on their products.

>>Any thought as to how this is going to play out?

No thoughts at all, currently. You haven't specified which M/F product you use. Consider, M/F gets into another merger - they would still continue with their products, albeit, as a cost-cutting measure, just like Fujitsu did, they could conceivably minimize their Tech Support, like answering, "How do I do this......?". They could even stop enhancing their products, although that would take the 'shine' off their star. Suppose alternatively they went really belly-up - I'm sure under commercial law they would be 'obliged' *perhaps* to give us the source of their defunct products. Hey ! That would be real neat - the FIRST COBOL OPEN SOURCE COMPILER THAT REALLY WORKS !

Ignoring where somebody else shells out the money, (like if you are a 'serf' working on a mainframe), for the smaller software houses and us cottage-industry folks the whole COBOL game is just getting too bloody expensive ! As both Fujitsu and M/F users get into dotNet, see some of the advantages of using dotNet features, perhaps put their feet gently into other OO languages - they are going to say "Who needs all this crap, being stung for more money. I might as well use dotNet with VB, #C or whatever - bye bye COBOL".

To alleviate your concerns, if using M/F products and you are in a COBOL '85 mindset. What the hell. You can take whichever M/F product you are using and continue in the same old way - or make the big jump to dotNet directly if GUI-ing or Webbing is your thing.

For me. I've just got totally fed up with all the nonsense associated with COBOL. I've quit. Should I ever do any future programming it will be a choice between Java or C#.

Just one footnote - and this burns my ass. Should M/F merge or go belly-up their coterie of directors wont fret - they've probably already negotiated golden parachutes. I consider Net Express to be a *SUPERB PRODUCT* - but I fret for all their loyal development staff who have made it happen over the years - and could get really shafted, some attrition, but rationalization (the latter being a euphemism for 'pink slip').

Jimmy, Calgary AB
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