Microsoft .Net software's hidden cost

Yahoo ^ | Sat Jun 22,11:11 AM ET | Joe Wilcox

[FoxPro]

Being one of the most experienced FoxPro developers in the world (beta tested the first version and have been using it daily ever since) I see very little FoxPro development out there. It is essentially a dead product wich is sad. Now I have to spend months figuring out Oracle. Its like going from a Yugo to a 18 wheeler.

[Dominic Harr]

I work for an Insurance company, and our policy admin system was ported to the PC platform using Microfocus cobol.

I work for CSC-FSG. Our main line of business is insurance systems -- Vantage, Cogen, S3, etc. We're the market leader.

Without giving too much strategic information I shouldn't, I'll only say that in my experience you might get far more bang for the buck by switching away from Cobol as your PC technology.

The architecture we're settling on is a Cobol backend on the IBM mainframe, with Java middleware and a Java applet front-end.

Just one man's opinion, but this solution is so much better it's been revolutionary.