On 9 Jan 2009 19:06:48 -0800, [email protected] (Clark Morris) wrote:
>If COBOL is still considered strategic and going forward rather than >something to be maintained until you can migrate to the brave new >world of Java, C#, New Vision, etc., then 64 bit is needed to support >IBM strategy. COBOL is supposed to communicate with Java and COBOL >routines are supposed to be usable in Websphere applications. Guess >what? Both of those environments can be either 31 bit or 64 bit. >Someone else pointed out that things can get tight in a heavily used >CICS region and that the 2 gig limit can impact the number of >concurrent transactions. If COBOL is other than a cash cow, then >serious upgrading is needed It doesn't matter whether CoBOL is a cash cow now or not. What matters is where it fits into IBM's plans for the future. That plan may be to have CoBOL profitable for some time to come - or it may be to have it die out - or maybe it will be used as part of IBM's overall strategy of marketing IBM, differentiating it from competitors that also produce Java and XML, or whatever word catches customers' eyes. Marketing is important. Positioning IBM so that customers in the future will think IBM first is important. How IBM decides to do this a question I don't know the answer to - but it is entirely conceivable that its strategy will include having many compatible tools - such as 64 bit CoBOL that can run on Z/OS and AIX. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
