Comments on: SAP and .Net skills are big now…because it’s hard to find anyone doing Cobol? http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/mainframe-blog/sap-and-net-skills-are-big-nowbecause-its-hard-to-find-anyone-doing-cobol/ A SearchDataCenter.com blog Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:03:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Tuomoks http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/mainframe-blog/sap-and-net-skills-are-big-nowbecause-its-hard-to-find-anyone-doing-cobol/#comment-9 Tuomoks Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:58:30 +0000 http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/mainframe-blog/?p=36#comment-9 Yes, it is a perception. First, there are a lot of people with COBOL skills (on all levels of COBOL) but , right or wrong, that skill is valued way lower than .NET or Java in corporate world. If the COBOL skills would pay the same, the job is same, there would be zero problems. Second - SAP, etc may be a solution for some but the fallacy that one system fits all can get very expensive, especially on long run. It is very hip to buy into the marketing hype, looks good, but in reality when all the costs and changes in business model have calculated (does anyone do that any more?) the results aren't sometimes so good. Of course this is good news for programmers and developers - again, in short term, but no fad (marketing based idea) has ever lasted as long as COBOL (or Fortran, or even CICS systems built in-house). The more depend the corporations come on some "solve it all" packages, the more expensive it gets later on and the less control over their own business they will have after a while. Cloud, SaaS, etc are a different, technical story - they don't force using any specific systems so the users still can have the control and are not forced to change the business models to fit to IT. Yes, it is a perception. First, there are a lot of people with COBOL skills (on all levels of COBOL) but , right or wrong, that skill is valued way lower than .NET or Java in corporate world. If the COBOL skills would pay the same, the job is same, there would be zero problems. Second - SAP, etc may be a solution for some but the fallacy that one system fits all can get very expensive, especially on long run. It is very hip to buy into the marketing hype, looks good, but in reality when all the costs and changes in business model have calculated (does anyone do that any more?) the results aren’t sometimes so good.

Of course this is good news for programmers and developers - again, in short term, but no fad (marketing based idea) has ever lasted as long as COBOL (or Fortran, or even CICS systems built in-house). The more depend the corporations come on some “solve it all” packages, the more expensive it gets later on and the less control over their own business they will have after a while.

Cloud, SaaS, etc are a different, technical story - they don’t force using any specific systems so the users still can have the control and are not forced to change the business models to fit to IT.

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