Mainframe Maintenance Solution Extends Development Environment to Workstations.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 4, 1998--Micro Focus (Nasdaq: MIFGY) Monday announced its new Mainframe Maintenance Solution(tm), targeted at helping corporations leverage their existing investments in mainframe applications and hardware.

The Mainframe Maintenance Solutionkstation technology needed to achieve their busme, LAN server, or workstation. For the first time, programmers are able to compile, edit, debug, and test mainframe code on workstations without having to download the entire application, providing all of the benefits of the interactive workstation environment without having to be concerned with the location of the application assets.

In addition, its graphical interface provides a clear window to the entire application maintenance process, while offering the familiar feel of the mainframe environment. It seamlessly supports the mainframe maintenance life cycle, from comprehensive inventory and analysis to integration testing. The environment includes a project management capability that intelligently assesses the scope of applications, while its team support effectively coordinates the work of large project teams. In addition, install wizards and auto-configuration enable rapid setup of new maintenance projects.

"By extending to the workstation, we have greater control over projects and planning than if we stayed on the mainframe," said Sherri Saplin, software systems consultant, at Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. "Our internal benchmarking has shown that on the mainframe, compiles can take anywhere from one minute to two hours, depending on resource availability. The workstation, however, consistently compiled programs in only a matter of minutes. This consistency leads to easier project planning and on-time delivery of programs."

"Our customers have told us that they are under increasing pressure to get their mainframe maintenance backlog under control," said Chris Sanders, senior vice president of product operations at Micro Focus. "Our Mainframe Maintenance Solution gives corporate IT organizations an integrated set of products and services which enable existing staff to quickly become more productive. And, its high level of automation and consistent, intuitive graphical interface let IT organizations further extend their resources by rapidly bringing new staff up to speed."

The Solution also seamlessly supports COBOL, S/390 Assembler, CICS, IMS, DB2, CLIST, and includes the world's first robust support for JCL on workstations. These mainframe-compatible features significantly enhance code quality by providing a powerful integration-testing platform that lets programmers thoroughly test applications in an ponent that quickly tests only that code which Micro Focus provides solutions for developing and managing enterprise applications that run on IBM (NYSE: IBM) mainframes. The company's solutions focus on leveraging tapplication development and maintenance solutiop. (NASDAQ:MSFT), Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL), St the Micro Focus Web site at http://www.microfull file on the Internet