COBOL – The World Tour Continues

This isn’t the first time we’ve reported on #DevDay – and we make no apology there. When it comes to technical insight and customer feedback, it is a favorite soundtrack for the global COBOL community.

So what might happen at a fresh venue? We got to find out when the tour crew arrived in Minneapolis recently.

50 something

DevDay in North America only recently celebrated its 50th show, in Atlanta. With the party over, where next? Well where better than a new venue. So with some local customers and partners providing a vocal audience, the team arrived in downtown Minneapolis, with fresh content for a fresh audience of enterprise application practitioners.

Of course, new kids on the block is old news. This year alone we have stood up COBOL technology shows in the City of London, in Tel Aviv, with larger Micro Focus events (including our AMC story – of course) in Vienna, KL, Manila, Singapore, Bangkok. The tour continues. Estimates put the number of attendees visiting a Micro Focus COBOL-focussed event in the last few years alone in the thousands. Take a look at our recent #DevDay introductory video and infographic.

Minneapolis #DevDay provided plenty of fresh energy from our newest members of the #DevDay fraternity. Building on a fresh agenda for 2019, delegates talked about modernization aspirations including moving to the cloud, application improvement through de-coupling and new user interfaces, and a range of other topics across the three Modernization areas

of Application, Process and Infrastructure. Micro Focus technical experts provided insights as always, and were able to offer guidance and examples covering a range of questions including continuous integration, distributed application development, and managing a hybrid IT infrastructure deployment.

The Community Speaks

I was lucky enough to catch up with the IBM Systems Media team in Minneapolis where their offices are based; they joined us to lend their support to Micro Focus’ #DevDay in Minneapolis and make our guests feel welcome.  Associate Publisher Mari Adamson-Bray was enthused by the COBOL community gathering in the Twin Cities.  “As long-time supporters of the mainframe and COBOL communities, we’re so pleased Micro Focus chose Minneapolis as a #DevDay location.  The event is such an opportunity for professionals to come together and we’re delighted to support Micro Focus and their guests while here.”

Micro Focus and IBM Systems Media are strong partners through IBM Systems Media publications and webinar offerings, and recently Micro Focus showcased an e-book on the value of core system modernization, here.   (Spoiler alert – watch for a new IBM Systems Media e-book this summer on COBOL, the application development language that turns 60 this year.  The e-book will explore, and celebrate, the language’s continued relevance today and into the future).

 Conclusion

With the #DevDay tour, the show must go on. In May we will be back in Chicago (register here), a firm crew favourite for #DevDay. Be sure to book your seat. And dates are being firmed up for more cities in North America later in 2019.

If you haven’t been lately and want a taster of our latest Micro Focus COBOL and modernization story, why not catch up with the recent Micro Focus Universe AMC plenary session here.

Of course, be sure to check back with the web page periodically. We have new product releases and a special birthday planned later this year. Don’t miss the news – be sure to subscribe. Find me on Twitter here to talk more

Avatar photo

follow me on twitter or connect on LinkedIn

Share this post:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *