Acucorp Releases Version 6.2 of extend®
Newest COBOL development tools offer enhanced support
for .NET,
thin client architecture and graphical program design
San Diego, CA – November 15, 2004 – Acucorp, Inc.—a leading provider of software solutions that revitalize legacy applications—today announces the availability of Version 6.2 of extend. Version 6.2, the latest release in the extend6 Interoperability Series, enables Fortune-class corporations, government end users and independent software vendors (ISVs) to maintain and modernize their critical COBOL business systems. Included in the more than 125 enhancements are technologies that better allow legacy applications to interoperate with Microsoft’s .NET®, be deployed on the Internet using a thin client architecture and take advantage of feature-rich graphical user interface (GUI) design principles.
“With Version 6.2, we have substantially refined our software development tools, enhancing interoperability, integration, and performance,” explains Drake Coker, Acucorp’s Chief Scientist and Co-Founder. “Developers using these tools can take advantage of their new features to modernize existing legacy systems and allow them to interoperate with other enterprise applications and environments via a Services-Oriented Architecture and Web services.”
New with Version 6.2
The Version 6.2 release features many enhancements to the extend
product suite including:
- Support for Microsoft .NET
Extensions that allow programs written in Acucorp’s
ACUCOBOL-GT®— a robust COBOL development system that includes a compiler, runtime (known as the COBOL Virtual Machine™), the Vision indexed file system, support utilities, and a source-level, interactive debugger—to interoperate with Microsoft .NET technologies have been added to Version 6.2 of extend. ACUCOBOL-GT applications can now provide key functions or services to a .NET program or assembly. They can also consume or invoke .NET assemblies and interact with .NET Web services. This allows legacy systems to easily interoperate with applications in the .NET environment and helps to revitalize them by providing and consuming services.
- Support for External Sort Modules
With Version 6.2, third-party sort modules can be called from ACUCOBOL-GT programs. This feature allows the use of optimized sort modules from SyncSort, Inc. and CoSORT. These companies also provide command-line utilities to quickly sort Vision data and other Acucorp supported data types without having to write programs in ACUCOBOL GT.
- ACUCOBOL-GT Web Thin Client
Also new is ACUCOBOL-GT Web Thin Client—a special version of Acucorp’s existing thin client technology—which enables developers to provide Web access to their applications using a thin client configuration. Delivered as an ActiveX® control, Acucorp’s Web thin client gives developers the choice of embedding an application within the browser page or, alternatively, executing it outside the browser—making it possible for the deployment of existing thin client applications on the Internet without the requirement to rewrite or even recompile them.
- New Graphical Controls
Version 6.2 introduces many new graphical enhancements, allowing developers to design richer GUI applications. Included in these enhancements are: the addition of several Microsoft ActiveX controls to the ACUCOBOL-GT development system for Windows, a new standard control for entering dates, enhanced grid control styles and properties for scrolling and cell content protection, and new tab control styles that allow tabs to be displayed at the left, right, or bottom of the control. As a result of these features, users can conveniently enter a date or time value and developers can redistribute ActiveX controls to their users as needed as well as have greater control over the appearance of tabs and grids.
The addition of these, and other Version 6.2, enhancements increase the portability and performance of Acucorp’s full suite of COBOL development tools, which include technologies that support SOA and Web services, Internet and mobile deployment, improved user response times, relational database management system (RDBMS) access, GUI application design and platform independence (with portability to more than 600 computing platforms).
About Acucorp
Founded in 1988, Acucorp, Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in San Diego, California, USA with additional offices in Great Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Acucorp's products are distributed in more than 100 countries throughout the world. Its over 4,000 customers and 1,000,000 end users include Ford Argentina, L’Oréal Mexico, Red Cross Belgium, Siemens, Sport Chalet, The Travelex Group (formerly Thomas Cook), Tower Records and Warner Music Group. The Company designs, develops, and markets innovative solutions for extending the life of vital COBOL business systems.
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Acucorp, extend and
ACUCOBOL-GT are registered trademarks and The COBOL Virtual Machine is a trademark
of Acucorp, Inc.
All other trademarks used are the property of their respective owners.
