Micro Focus

International Cobol Survey

April 2015

Whats the Future for your COBOL applications?

Survey Summary

An unique international study on the challenges and evolution of COBOL assets around the world according to the words of its users

Key questions to get a complete overview of COBOL applications in businesses.

More than 200,000 IT professionals in more than 50 countries have been asked to participate

Up to 5 000 answers , including 3 500 complete answers to the survey in 6 languages

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Key points

COBOL is not dead and very much alive 63% of the respondents estimate that the size of their COBOL estate is above 1 million

LOC.

82% expect the size of their COBOL estate to increase or stay the same in 2015.

82% consider their COBOL applications to be strategic to their organization.

COBOL stays in-house 59% do not outsource at all the development and maintenance of their COBOL

applications.

Outsourcing is mostly done in-country (72%).

COBOL is changing and evolving 32% are in the process of modernizing their COBOL applications.

44% of the respondents have budgeted projects to upgrade their COBOL assets in 2015.

Aligning applications to business and creating systems that are agile and easy to evolve are the 2 most important criteria when modernizing or upgrading COBOL applications.

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1. What is your organizations primary industry or market?

27,0%

20,0%

9,6%

8,8%

8,1%

7,3%

7,0%

6,5%

3,2%

2,7% Healthcare

Education

Other

Manufacturing

Public sector

Independent Software Vendor (ISV)

Services

Distribution / Retail

Information Technology

Financial Services / Insurance

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2. What is your job function?

26,7%

14,6%

10,8%

8,2%

8,1%

7,9%

7,3%

6,0%

5,2%

4,4%

0,7%

Developer

CIO/ IT Manager

System / Support Administrator

Development Manager

IT Architect

Project Manager

Other

External Consultant

Application Manager

IT Business Manager

Student

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3. Number of employees?

23,4%

17,5%

16,5%

7,8%

15,9%

18,9%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

1 to 9

10 to 99

100 to 499

500 to 999

1000 to 4999

5000+

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4. How many developers support COBOL applications in your

business?

17,4%

43,4%

15,8%

7,2%

16,1%

0 Outsourced / ISV app

1-5

5-20

20-50

Over 50

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5. Please estimate the size of your COBOL estate. (Lines of Code)

International Cobol Survey Report 9

37,4%

19,7%

13,8%

10,6%

8,3%

10,2%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Less than 1 million LOC

Between 1 and 2 million LOC

Between 2 and 5 million LOC

Between 5 and 10 million LOC

Between 10 and 25 million LOC

Above 25 million LOC

6. In 2015, do you expect that the size of your COBOL estate will:

(Lines of Code)

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35,4%

46,2%

18,4%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

Increase Remain broadly the same Decrease

7. How would you describe the COBOL applications within your

organization?

51,1%

30,7%

18,2% Very strategic

Moderately strategic

Not strategic

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8. Which platforms are you running your COBOL applications on?

43,6%

25,5% 24,1%

13,9% 13,9%

6,8% 6,8% 6,8%

4,0% 3,7% 2,9% 2,1% 1,6% 1,3% 0,9% 0,8% 0,8%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

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9. How much of your IT development budget is spent on COBOL

maintenance / innovation?

49,7%

31,0%

14,1%

5,2%

Below 15% Between 15% and 30% Between 30% and 60% Above 60%

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10. Do you outsource the development and maintenance of your

COBOL applications?

59,1%

12,8%

7,9%

8,2%

12,0%

Not outsourced Less than 25% Between 25% and 50% Above 50% Completely outsourced

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11. What type of outsourcing have you adopted?

24,9%

20,8%

72,4%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Offshore Near-Shore In-country

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12. What was the rationale behind outsourcing?

46,7%

42,1%

32,2%

20,0%

17,5%

12,3%

3,0%

0,0% 10,0% 20,0% 30,0% 40,0% 50,0%

Other

Applications are not strategic

Application modernization

Development quality and productivity

Flexible resource management

Limited availability of internalresources

Control and/or cost reduction

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13. How much does COBOL resource management concern you?

25,4%

17,0%

37,9%

18,9%

15,2%

15,4%

19,7%

12,3%

22,8%

27,0%

20,4%

20,7%

19,3%

25,4%

11,9%

23,9%

17,3%

15,2%

10,1%

24,1%

Ability to recruit

Ease of knowledgetransfer

University coursesmeeting

requirements

Impact of retirement

1 2 3 4 5

Criteria Average mark

1 to 5 Median 1 to 5

Impact of Retirement

3,2 3

Ease of knowledge

transfer 3,1 3

Ability to recruit

2,9 3

University courses meeting

requirements

2,4 2

1 lowest score; 5 the highest

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14. What is the average age bracket of your COBOL developers?

11,5%

28,0%

41,7%

14,5%

4,3%

less than 35 years

between 35 and 45

between 45 and 55

between 55 and 60

more than 60

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15. In 2015, your enterprise COBOL applications are:

57,1%

31,8%

20,5%

16,1%

13,7%

12,7% Being replaced by packaged solutions

At their end of life without substitution

Being migrated to open systems

Being rewritten in another language,such as Java

In the process of being modernized

Maintained in current state and inproduction

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16. When thinking of your COBOL apps, which of the following technologies

and IT trends do you already support or will support during 2015?

32,8%

30,6%

22,3%

18,8%

17,1%

16,3%

15,5%

15,0%

11,6%

10,0%

5,6%

Other

Cloud

Supporting mobile/tablet computing

Virtualization

Moving to Linux

SOA/web services/REST

Adoption of Visual Studio tooling

Adoption of Eclipse tooling

Integration with .NET systems

Integration with Java systems

Integration with Relational DatabaseSystems

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17. What are the most important criteria employed when

modernizing / upgrading your strategic COBOL applications?

52,5%

46,4%

36,2%

35,4%

24,7%

23,4%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Increase or introduce mobility

Reducing delivery period and time tomarket

Minimize risk

Reduce cost by improvingprice/performance ratio

Create systems that are agile andeasy to evolve

Align applications to business need todeliver competitive advantage

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18. What is average future life-span of your COBOL Applications?

43,6%

39,0%

17,5%

Less than 3 years

From 3 to 10 years

More than 10 years

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