Challenges for NonStop Cobol Development

We’ve had some interesting conversations with our customers about their challenges finding application developers.  Almost all of our customers are using NonStop COBOL as their primary development language.  But colleges and trade schools have stopped teaching COBOL.  

Here are some of their comments:

• It’s really hard to find COBOL programmers.

• COBOL programmers demand too high a salary.

• Our current COBOL programmers are retiring, and in some cases, being laid off because of their higher salaries.

• We have so many “old” COBOL programs that haven’t been recompiled in years (even decades).

• We’d like to migrate to another language that we can find staff for but don’t want to switch to OSS.  (Java requires OSS and HP says that is the language we should use.)

• We’d like to upgrade to Native Mode COBOL but don’t know what that entails.  The migration manual makes this sound scary.  Is there anyone who can help?

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Phil Ly is the president of TIC Software, a leading provider of software and services for the NonStop community focused on NonStop application modernization. Under Phil's guidance, TIC Software has a proven track record of helping clients seamlessly integrate NonStop with next-generation technologies. A recognized technical leader, Phil is passionate about empowering organizations to unlock the full potential and longevity of their NonStop platform through innovative solutions.