Re: MF having issues?


"James J. Gavan" <jgavandeletethis@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:RJMLf.67898$H%4.24314@xxxxxxxxxxx
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.)

My prediction was that MF would disappear in 15 years. At 7% per year, that
looks about right...

I'm not happy to see this. There are some very good and dedicated people
working there and I hope something is done to salvage the situation.

If the result is bad enough for the CEO to fall on his sword, then there has
been some serious mismanagement, no matter how you spin it.

Personally, I believe the whole marketing model is wrong. The runtime fees
are simply stifling any possible hope of new development by software houses
who want to sell their products in a competitive marketplace. The track
record of the company has been bad in terms of supporting their user base
(they are not alone in this...) and the main reason I am using Fujitsu today
is because of the farce over VISOC and the shafting of the customer base by
MF. Fujitsu grabbed a market share the minute MF dropped the ball, but the
fact is that the whole COBOL playing field is becoming an undesirable place
to be, both for the officials and the players...


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


Yes...

1. Fujitsu will opt out of the COBOL game within 10 years. (Unless there is
a huge uptake on dot Net. Oddly enough it is starting to look as if this
could be on the cards. I am considering buying the Fujitsu dot NET compiler
again, where I thought I wasn't going to... :-) However, given that it costs
several thousand dollars, it is more likely I'll move to C# and Java. After
looking initially like a damp squib, dot NET is starting to show some
significant growth. (Why is it that today a 20 MB download of the .NET
framework doesn't look so bad, when 3 years ago it was prohibitive... ? I
believe this has a significant impact on the uptake of it.)

2. AcuCOBOL will be close behind or ahead of them.

3. IBM will persevere with it because they have the largest customer base
and it will take 15 years before that base is replaced by the new wave. The
IBM product for Visual Age was originally MicroFocus (I'm not sure what the
status is now) so trouble at MF could certainly make IBM look at things
again. Mainframe COBOL is becoming less and less viable, as IBM's preferrred
solution moves towards Java. The skill base is dying off or retiring and the
new wave can't see the point...(They may or may not be right...)


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.

"Past performance is no indication of future returns. The price of shares
can go up or down."

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.

And I don't think the current concept is workable either. (See above)
Runtime fees may be an ongoing revenue generator for the current base, but
that base will not expand and as attrition takes its toll, the revenue
stream will dry up. There is actually an incentive for people to move
systems OFF the platform where they pay a runtime fee.

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.

So, how many customers fronted up and said: "Yeah, we like paying Runtime
fees..."?

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.

Actually DIALOG was based on PANELS, which was excellent. Part fo the
problem with DIALOG is that it has its own language for handling events.
This means you have to learn DIALOG as well as COBOL (it isn't difficult,
but 'difficult' is all relative...) Fujitsu made sure that event handling is
written in COBOL. Having used both, I prefer {PowerCOBOL to DIALOG.


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.

It is good to hear that.

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 !

....And everyone has switched to Java... :-)

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".

That certainly seems to be the way things are going.

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#.

I am amazed to hear that. Although I understand your frustration.

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').

Ah, the management are always first to the lifeboats...in fact they have
their own reserved lifeboats... :-)

Pete.



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