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Sunnyvale,
September 28, 2004 –
Fujitsu Software Corporation today announced that, having worked closely with Microsoft Corp. over the
last few years in the area of mainframe migrations, it is enthusiastically supporting the recently
formed Mainframe Migration Alliance (MMA), an organization created by Microsoft and other industry
partners designed to help customers migrate workloads off the mainframe and onto the Microsoft Windows
platform. The alliance represents a group of companies that have their interests aligned in making
mainframe migrations easier and more efficient for customers.
Fujitsu Software, a subsidiary of Fujitsu Ltd., a $45 billion global provider of customer-focused IT
and communications solutions, and part of the well-established Microsoft-Fujitsu global alliance, brings
its CICS and batch COBOL migrations solutions to the group, along with its experience of helping companies
migrate from the mainframe. Mainframe migrations have been a focus of the Microsoft-Fujitsu global
alliance for over three years producing great benefits for organizations that make the move. Migration
successes include:
- Washington Department of Licensing expecting to save $1 million per year in hardware and software
maintenance costs and is already experiencing agility gains in quickly transforming existing
applications into Web Services.
- Presidential Life made the break from the mainframe in the mid-90's and is finding greater
promise and productivity from the latest Microsoft and Fujitsu Software offerings.
- Stanislaus County saved over $700,000 per year (approaching 90% of its previous budget)
by migrating its CICS applications to a NetCOBOL for .NET solution AND experienced a six-fold
improvement in response times.
- Stockholmshem, a major Swedish housing corporation, is expecting an ROI of less than 24 months and
a much improved ability to find and retain staff with the appropriate competencies as applications
are on a popular, growing platform.
"We started helping organizations migrate from the
mainframe in 1999 when we worked with San Diego City Schools to move more than 2000 COBOL programs to
Windows-based servers," said Ron Langer, senior director languages group, Fujitsu Software Corporation.
"They were able to make big savings in their budget while putting in place an infrastructure that would
support their future growth. The case was convincing four years ago yet, in those four years, we've seen
leaps in Windows-based server price: performance ratios and steadily improving migration-supporting
software. Consequently many companies are now looking for a route that will take them away from their
expensive mainframes to the much more agile Windows and .NET Framework-based environments. The founding
of the MMA recognizes that need and is a group with which we are excited to be associated."
"It was a natural progression for Fujitsu Software to join the MMA" said Spyros Sakellariadis, Mainframe
Migration Initiative Project Manager for Microsoft Corp. "We have been working together on mainframe
migration projects for some time, as an offshoot of the global alliance between Microsoft and Fujitsu;
the extension of our relationship makes sense for both organizations, as we have complementary products
and expertise. The MMA provides mainframe customers who are seeking more agile and cost-effective
platforms with a single location where they can research the best migration offerings available."
Fujitsu Software provides its customers a route to agile IT by:
- Helping them drastically reduce the costs of maintaining and operating their current applications,
- Moving the code to the highly productive Microsoft Visual Studio .NET development environment which accelerates both maintenance and new developments, and
- Giving CICS applications new ASP.NET Web interfaces (or Windows Forms interfaces) thus greatly increasing their useful lifespan.
The importance of this final bullet should not be underestimated - CICS applications no longer need feel
constrained by character-based interfaces. In one small step for each CICS program, but a giant step for
organizational agility, applications move from being regarded as on-the-shelf and over-the-hill to being
in the same stables as all the other Web or Windows-enabled applications. They change from being dogs to
thoroughbreds!
The suite of products that deliver these benefits are NetCOBOL for .NET and NetCOBOL for Windows, NeoKicks
and zBatch. Fujitsu Software works directly with customers or alongside system integrators and other MMA
members to ensure successful migrations from IBM mainframes to Microsoft Windows-based server environments.
For more information
please visit www.netcobol.com.
About
Fujitsu Software Corporation
Fujitsu Software Corporation, based in Sunnyvale, California, is
part of the Fujitsu Limited family. Fujitsu Software Corporation
leverages Fujitsu's international scope and expertise in developing
and providing information technology solutions. Fujitsu Software
Corporation's products include NetCOBOL® and Interstage®,
e-business infrastructure software. NetCOBOL is a COBOL development
environment and suite of tools to build fast, mission-critical business
systems on open platforms, including Microsoft's .NET Framework.
For more information, visit http://www.fsw.fujitsu.com
Copyright
2004 Fujitsu Software Corporation. Fujitsu, the Fujitsu Symbol Mark,
NetCOBOL and Interstage are registered trademarks, and NeoKicks
is a trademark, of Fujitsu Software.
All other registered trademarks, trade names, or service marks mentioned
in this document are the property of their respective owners.
MORE INFORMATION
Fujitsu Software Corporation
Andrew Mackenzie
(408) 746-6323
andrewm@us.fujitsu.com
Marilyn Green
(650) 218-9986
msg2004@comcast.net
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