COBOL – Still doing the business
Stephen Kelly
09/06/2009

In 2009’s turbulent economic climate, modernising existing COBOL systems is an attractive prospect for CIOs looking to do more with less, says Stephen Kelly, CEO of Micro Focus.

Integrating technology from 50 years ago with the 21st century is no easy task. One couldn’t, for example, sync their iPod with a Gramophone, upload a document to a typewriter or text a friend from a phone box. Yet much of the technology which underpins today’s business world is inextricably linked to an innovation which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

On 28 May 1959, a meeting at the Pentagon laid down the guidelines which would form the basis of COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language). Whilst such a prominent building will no doubt have played host to more momentous conferences, few, if any, will have gone on to have such a marked influence upon the future of business technology. Over the following decades, COBOL developed an almost ubiquitous relationship with enterprise IT. As large corporations and government departments increased their reliance on digital information, underpinning the IT infrastructures of virtually every major organisation were large, reliable COBOL-based applications.

As a result, today COBOL is everywhere, yet is largely unheard of among the millions of people who interact with it on a daily basis. Its reach is so pervasive that it is almost unthinkable that the average person could go a day without it. Whether using an ATM, stopping at traffic lights or purchasing a product online, the vast majority of us will use COBOL in one form or another as part of our daily existence.

The statistics which surround COBOL attest to its huge influence upon the business world. There are over 220 billion lines of COBOL in existence, a figure which equates to around 80 per cent of the world’s actively used code. There are estimated to be over a million COBOL programmers in the world today. Most impressive perhaps, is that 200 times as many COBOL transactions take place each day than Google searches – a figure which puts the influence of Web 2.0 into stark perspective.

Every year, COBOL systems are responsible for transporting up to 72,000 shipping containers, caring for 60 million patients, processing 80 per cent of point-of-sales transactions and connecting 500 million mobile phone users. COBOL manages our train timetables, air traffic control systems, holiday bookings and supermarket stock controls. And the list could go on.

But what has made COBOL such a success? Why, despite doomsayers confidently predicting its demise for the past 30 years, does it continue to proliferate? The simplest answer to this question is just that: simplicity. Ever since the idea was hatched five decades ago, COBOL aimed to provide a common standard for programmers based on the use of plain English, simplifying coding for developers and businesses alike. COBOL programmers appreciate this, not to mention the fact that it is a better guarantee of employment than almost any other IT specialism.

The versatility of COBOL has also played a part in its abundance and longevity. Applications first developed to run on IBM System 700 mainframes are now being readied to move onto an Amazon or Microsoft cloud computing platform. COBOL’s propensity for modernisation is unparalleled, making it not only effective but also cost-effective. In 2009’s turbulent economic climate, modernising existing COBOL systems is an attractive prospect for CIOs looking to ‘do more with less’.

Perhaps most crucially though, COBOL systems dating back a number of decades still exist today because of the immense investment of hours and resources which have been spent on them during this time. Because of their longevity, these systems have evolved with the business, and become crucial corporate assets in their own right. Given the competitive advantage these bespoke systems can provide, they are far more than just a cost on the balance sheet. Put simply, if COBOL systems can continue to perform business-critical tasks efficiently and reliably, then there is no reason why they may not continue to do so for another 50 years.

So is there no end in sight for COBOL’s supremacy? Is the language which has so dominated the last five decades of computing set to continue to do so for the next half century? Having shrugged off the over-hyped threat of the Millennium Bug with consummate ease, it would seem the main risk facing COBOL in the 21st century is finding and training enough professionals to maintain all 220 billion lines.

Recent research has shown that less than a third of CIOs (29 per cent) believe they are recruiting enough core IT assets specialists. Whilst IT leaders have grasped the value of these vital software assets and realised that modernisation is a cheaper and less risky strategy than replacement, finding sufficient numbers to fulfil this need is proving increasingly difficult. With many computer science students opting to learn Web 2.0 skills, and many of those who are proficient reaching retirement age, COBOL’s success and longevity are almost proving a hindrance to its long-term survival.

Ensuring COBOL remains a crucial part of the IT skills set must be a key priority for business, government and academia alike over the coming years, as the effects of a serious shortage could be disastrous. The cost of re-writing COBOL programs is estimated at around $25 per line. With over 200 billion such lines in existence, it doesn’t take a mathematician to decipher that this would be a heavy cost for business to bear, let alone the disruption to operations caused by lengthy re-write strategies.

The need for skills is all the more apparent given that COBOL has reached yet another critical juncture in its evolution. The advent of Cloud computing is the latest step which the language will have to take if its influence is to continue in the 21st century, yet one that it seems equal to.

COBOL applications have continually shown their ability to adapt to new platforms, and the emergence of the Cloud should prove no different. Whilst the Cloud has the potential to revolutionise the way information technology is delivered, it is the applications which run on these platforms which will continue to perform the functions most valuable to the business. Whilst new platforms may come and go, these core systems maintain their role at the very heart of the business. Despite being written off as defunct on countless occasions, COBOL and the applications which run on it continue to play a huge role in enterprise computing. From relatively humble beginnings, COBOL has become the code which has defined the digital age, and a world without COBOL would be quite unrecognisable from the one which we know today.

In a time when the rate of technological and business change appears to increase by the day, it seems remarkable that the technology which underpins the majority of the world’s most important systems is now fifty years old. However, to those who work closely with COBOL, it is much less of a surprise. Its influence is not sheer good fortune. The longevity of COBOL is a testament to its versatility, its reliability and above all its success. The success of a simple code, which has changed the face of business technology and offered a lesson to us all in growing old gracefully.

- Stephen Kelly is CEO of Micro Focus.

advertisement