SYSTEMS

CHICAGO, IL -- In response to customer demand, Fujitsu Software Corporation, a leading supplier of COBOL compilers and tools, is releasing its popular NetCOBOL(TM) product on the Linux operating system. This is good news for those who are considering Linux as a potential platform for their mission-critical applications and good news for the COBOL community as Fujitsu brings NetCOBOL's performance and reliability to another major operating system platform. "Fujitsu has seen increasing requests for NetCOBOL on Linux over the last two to three years from major customers as well as smaller companies. These requests are in line with the growing respect that Linux enjoys as a platform for mainstream business applications," said Ron Langer, director of languages for Fujitsu Software Corporation. "Because Fujitsu is committed to delivering reliable, quality software, we pick our platforms carefully. We prefer to focus our efforts on a few strategic platforms rather than spread ourselves thinly across many. Linux has earned the right to be one of those selected platforms." Linux is seen as a viable server operating system because of reliability and cost considerations. Companies considering Linux need a reliable, cost-effective, COBOL product to extend their strategic investment in COBOL. "Linux is an especially attractive platform for those looking to move from discontinued hardware such as the HP3000," said Rick Hardman, software development manager for DB-Net, a company that specializes in migrations from the HP3000 platform. "My early testing with the NetCOBOL product on Linux shows an application that took several hours on an older small end HP3000 taking less than a minute on a new commodity Pentium 4 PC." Edmund C. Arranga, editor of CobolReport.com and organizer of COBOL Expo 2002, said, "We're excited to hear this announcement from Fujitsu, one of the leading vendors in the COBOL industry today. There's clearly a demand for COBOL wherever serious business is conducted. The recent announcement of NetCOBOL for .NET, together with today's news of NetCOBOL for Linux make it clear that Fujitsu, for one, sees a strong future in COBOL." NetCOBOL for Linux will be available for beta testing in July and for production development at the conclusion of the beta testing period. It has been tested and developed on Red Hat Linux because the Red Hat distribution package is considered by many to be the best option for business servers. For more details about NetCOBOL for Linux, visit www.netcobol.com.