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Micro Focus Unveils Open Platform Product Strategy

Posted on: Monday, 25 April 2005, 09:00 CDT

Micro Focus International Ltd. (Micro Focus(R)), today announced its open platform strategy for legacy application development and deployment products. This strategy builds on the Company's vision to offer a single integrated development environment (IDE) based on Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to develop applications for deployment on HP, IBM, Microsoft, Novell SUSE Linux, Red Hat Linux and Sun Microsystems platforms. The new products will be called Micro Focus Studio, for development, and Micro Focus Server, for deployment. The first release of these products is expected during the first quarter of 2006.

Micro Focus will integrate its legacy development software within Micro Focus Studio using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 as the core development environment. In the interim, Micro Focus' current development products - Mainframe Express(R) Enterprise Edition, Net Express(R), Server Express(TM), and Revolve(R) - will be collectively known as Micro Focus Studio. Micro Focus' existing legacy deployment software - Application Server(TM) and Enterprise Server(TM) - will be collectively known as Micro Focus Server.

"Micro Focus Studio and Micro Focus Server will offer the advantage of tightly integrated development, analysis and deployment options for customers seeking to maximize their investment in legacy systems," said Ian Archbell, vice president of product management for Micro Focus. "We are offering our customers a broad array of tools in Micro Focus Studio that will allow for rapid application development and deployment on the mainframe and all contemporary platforms using Micro Focus Server."

"Microsoft is excited that through Micro Focus Studio, developers will use the power and productivity of Visual Studio to extend the value of their legacy systems," said Nick Abbott, group manager in the .NET Developer Product Management Group at Microsoft Corp. "We continue to work closely with Micro Focus to ensure that its investment in Visual Studio will enable our joint customer base to reap real business benefits."

"Sun's UltraSPARC-based systems for Solaris provide our customers with a high performance environment for mission-critical enterprise applications," said David Yen, executive vice president, Scalable Systems Group, Sun Microsystems. "Micro Focus' development and deployment options for contemporary platforms help our joint customers make the best use of their legacy environments."

When released, the new development software, Micro Focus Studio, will provide industry leading tools to manage and develop legacy applications in a high performance, contemporary environment, irrespective of the current development platform or deployment architecture. Applications developed using Micro Focus Studio will be deployed using the mainframe or Micro Focus Server, with comprehensive deployment options that will enable customers to re-use their legacy applications on contemporary architectures and Web services frameworks, such as Microsoft .NET, J2EE and XML.

"Our legacy systems continue to provide great value to our customers for launching new products," said Jay White, Senior Director, CSC Financial Services Group. "Having a streamlined set of development and deployment tools for mainframe and distributed applications, all in one place, under one IDE, is critical for us as we reuse existing legacy applications throughout the enterprise."

"Legacy applications form the backbone of most large corporations," said Gary Barnett, IT research director at Ovum, Inc. "Micro Focus' simplification of their product solutions will go a long way to helping businesses take advantage of those resources by giving them flexibility when it comes to the evolution of their legacy assets."

Micro Focus - Unlocking the Value of Legacy(TM)

Micro Focus is a leading provider of legacy development and deployment software for enterprise platforms. Micro Focus enables organizations to reduce costs and increase agility with minimal risk by reusing their legacy applications with contemporary architectures and Web services. Founded in 1976, Micro Focus is a global company with principal offices in the United Kingdom, United States and Japan. For more information, visit www.microfocus.com.

Micro Focus, Mainframe Express, Net Express and Revolve are registered trademarks and Server Express, Enterprise Server, Applications Server and Unlocking the Value of Legacy are trademarks of Micro Focus International, Ltd. All other products mentioned in this announcement are trademarks of their respective owners.

Source: Business Wire

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