Fujitsu Software NeoKicks and NetCOBOL for .NET
Solve Mainframe Migration Problem For Presidential Life Insurance
Move to Fujitsu solution meets critical need to run CICS COBOL programs
on supported software, provides Web connectivity and access to much
newer technology with less expensive runtime licensing options.
Sunnyvale, CA, October 4, 2004 – Presidential
Life Insurance Company, a leading provider of fixed deferred and immediate
annuities and life insurance products to financial service professionals
and their clients across the United States, has selected Fujitsu Software’s
NeoKicks and NetCOBOL for .NET on Windows Server 2003 to run the company’s
CICS-based applications.
Presidential Life recognized the benefit of moving off the mainframe
in the mid-1990s and has been running production CICS-based applications
that support annuity products, tax and stockholder systems on Windows
NT for several years. The system that supports the life insurance operations
is based on a third party product and was converted to NetCOBOL for
Windows in 2003. Its data is stored in indexed files using Pervasive’s
Btrieve product.
“Support for Windows NT ceases in January 2005 and support for
the CICS-supporting package Presidential Life has been using expires
in June 2005,” said Marilyn Shenn, senior vice president, CIO
for Presidential Life. “Continuing to execute on these unsupported
systems would clearly be unacceptable so we had to find a solution that
would keep us fully supported for the foreseeable future.”
In addition to the critical support needs, Presidential Life was also
beginning to consider taking advantage of some of the GUI features,
or Web connectivity, available in newer releases of the Windows operating
system and, if possible, find a more agreeable fee structure for its
COBOL runtime support.
Resolving the support issues clearly required upgrading to the latest
versions of
Windows and finding a newer product that would support CICS COBOL programs.
NeoKicks not only satisfies the CICS migration and support requirements,
but it also works on Microsoft’s strategic .NET environment and
also provides an upgrade path for BMS screens, taking them to ASP.NET
pages.
The COBOL part of the solution, NetCOBOL for .NET, which provides the
foundation
for NeoKicks, gave access to the extensive .NET Framework class libraries
and
brought the benefits of Visual Studio .NET to Presidential Life developers.
It also has
a no-runtime-charge model.
Using the Btrieve feature of Pervasive.SQL for the COBOL data file
support for the
migrating CICS code allows Presidential Life to bring all its data into
a common file
system because the Life Insurance systems already use Btrieve.
“One of the primary reasons Presidential Life chose Fujitsu Software
was the ease of migration provided by the NeoKicks Project Wizard, which
processes the
COBOL programs and BMS maps into their new .NET form and populates Visual
Studio .NET projects,” said Ron Langer, senior director, languages
group, Fujitsu Software. “Other advantages became apparent during
pilot programs, including better application performance and more competitive
pricing of production support, such as no COBOL runtimes.”
Commenting on the choice of Fujitsu Software, Shenn said “Presidential
Life already
had experience with Fujitsu Software’s products when we migrated
to NetCOBOL
for Windows in 2003. This gave us confidence in the reliability of the
products and,
after researching other solutions available to support CICS in the Windows
environment, we decided that NeoKicks with NetCOBOL was going to be
the best solution to give us the agility we were seeking for the future,
both in terms of application development options and a reasonable cost
base.”
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 (TSE:6702) family. The wholly owned subsidiary
delivers one of the world’s broadest lines of application infrastructure
software products, including the Interstage® Suite and NetCOBOL®.
Fujitsu Software Corporation leverages Fujitsu’s international
scope and expertise in developing and providing information technology
solutions, including more than 4,000 software developers worldwide.
To learn more about Fujitsu Software Corporation, visit www.fsw.fujitsu.com.
Copyright 2004 Fujitsu Software Corporation.
Fujitsu, the Fujitsu Symbol Mark, and Interstage are registered trademarks
of Fujitsu Limited.
NetCOBOL is a registered trademark and NeoKicks a trademark of Fujitsu
Software Corporation.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners
For Mor Information
Fujitsu Software Corporation
Andrew Mackenzie
(408) 746-6323
andrewm@us.fujitsu.com
Marilyn Green
(650) 218-9986
msg2004@comcast.net
