ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Micro Focus (LSE: MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernization, testing, and management solutions, today announced that United Life Insurance Company has utilized Micro Focus Visual COBOL to modernize its application landscape, to deliver more powerful features 20 percent faster.
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the modernization of key functions is one of the biggest issues for today’s insurance industry. United Life, a provider of life insurance and annuity products, was looking to modernize its 1,000 strong application estate, to leverage .NET and Object Orientation, while protecting its core business processes. United Life needed to improve flexibility within its application infrastructure, better align development skills with the web team and enhance cross-team collaboration.
The modernization process proved simple and straight forward, with more than one million lines of code transitioned in just three months. Efficiency gains were immediate, productivity improving by up to 20 percent. Further, United Life can remove transactional steps previously required between COBOL and web applications, and introduce a data tracking report.
“Micro Focus Visual COBOL allowed us to utilize our existing COBOL business rules, improve integration with other systems, and hone our vision for future enhancements, all with a seamless integration phase,” said Jim Veglahn, Programming Manager, United Life Insurance Company. “United Life prides itself on being able to deliver superior service for our agents and clients, and the infrastructure improvements made possible by Visual COBOL have enabled us to continue to deliver at a level that meets our high standards.”
The United Life team considered other commercial and open source COBOL solutions as part of their research. The open source option lacked .NET capability, which would limit integration opportunities. The commercial solutions required all files to be converted to a new format, which was seen as costly and complicated. Micro Focus Visual COBOL enabled the seamless integration of existing files and offered the .NET capability that the company needed.
“Improving efficiency without breaking budgets is a top concern for executives across industries. For 38 years, Micro Focus has been dedicated to addressing that issue by helping companies achieve ongoing value from their existing IT investments,” said David Taylor, President of North America at Micro Focus. “United Life was able to extend the value of their business critical application investments by utilizing Micro Focus’ powerful Visual COBOL offerings. Our goal is to help our customers improve operational efficiency, and we’re pleased to have assisted United Life to that end.”
To read the full United Life case study, please click here: http://ow.ly/w5sUi
About Micro Focus
Micro Focus, a member of the FTSE 250, provides innovative software that allows companies to dramatically improve the business value of their enterprise applications. Micro Focus Enterprise Application Modernization, Testing and Management software enables customers' business applications to respond rapidly to market changes and embrace modern architectures with reduced cost and risk. For additional information please visit www.microfocus.com.
Follow Micro Focus on twitter | linkedin | community