http:// 2013-03-25T02:00:00Z 2013-03-25T02:00:00Z borland-silk-portfolio-providing-a-highly-flexible-lightweight-approach-to-test-automation-for-cloud-web-and-mobile-platforms

​Sydney, Australia - 25 March, 2013 - Organisations of all sizes are tasked with overcoming the challenge of delivering more products, on more platforms, in less time and with fewer resources. In response to this, Borland, a Micro Focus company (LSE: MCRO.L), today launched the Borland Silk Portfolio – a comprehensive set of test automation tools for cloud, web and mobile platforms. Working with, existing development and testing frameworks, the Silk product family delivers more capabilities to significantly improve application quality and reliability, while drastically reducing application deployment risk with significant time and cost savings. The Borland Silk Portfolio takes a highly flexible approach to optimising the quality and performance of all customers’ applications. It helps large and small development teams to standardise processes and centralise best practices across the organisation, and streamline cloud, web and mobile application delivery to save time, money and effort. Jeff Findlay, Borland Architect – APJ, at Micro Focus, said: “Testing teams have it rough today. These teams have a variety of challenges that span multiple technologies and platforms. Putting the problem in perspective, a team that only wants to support one major browser on one major OS has to test across at least 24 different desktop combinations. Our tools help customers ensure their apps work across as many platform/device combinations they want to support, bringing order to chaos and ensuring large-scale application delivery without any nasty surprises. Continuing, Findlay said: “Designed to be simple, intuitive and easy to use, Silk Portfolio brings control to testing, minimising the risks to delivering higher quality software while allowing developers a choice of tooling. It means our customers can deploy the most complex applications knowing they will meet their quality, scalability and performance objectives, and that ultimately their customers’ first experience will be positive.” The Silk product set comprises: • Silk Mobile – Functional testing of mobile devices across all platforms. Plug in and go, no jail breaking, just install on your PC and plug in any mobile device for automated testing. • Silk Test – Powerful test automation that delivers cross browser and cross platform testing designed to be used visually without any coding with Microsoft Visual Studio and Eclipse. Flexible packages are available to suit the needs of a variety of use cases. • Silk Performer Cloud – Simulate load tests in the cloud without investing in infrastructure. Focus on performance and not IT hardware acquisition issues by setting multiple regional agents on the cloud, no expensive spend on hardware and set up, pay as you go (whatever you use). • Silk WebMeter –Advanced website performance tool that tests websites globally. Free to download, lightweight and easy to use. • Silk Performer – Easy and cost effective performance and load testing for web 2.0, enterprise and mobile applications. Know what will really happen to your application in the real world. • Silk Central –Test management for agile and traditional development projects that eliminates the need to work from spread sheets and documents. Collaborative and customisable, testers can align goals and requirements with testing, technology and processes in a way that brings efficiency to manual testing almost immediately. The Silk Portfolio end-to-end solution helps development organisations manage the uncertainties and risk brought about by new technology platforms and multiple devices, networks and operating systems though component-based test automation. To find out more about the Borland Silk product set visit: http://www.borland.com/silkportfolio. About Borland Originating in 1983, Borland Software Corporation is a world-class provider of requirements, test and change management solutions. As part of Micro Focus Ltd, a member of the FTSE 250, Borland offers tools that are open, agile and work across the entire Application Development Lifecycle to enable customers to build better software, faster. For additional information please visit www.borland.com. Follow Micro Focus and Borland on twitter | linkedin| community

2013-01-17T06:36:00Z micro-focus-changes-the-face-of-terminal-emulation-with-release-of-rumba

Organisations today face competitive and productivity challenges with so-called legacy mainframe applications. End users of green-screen mainframe applications are frustrated with the rigidity of the business applications when they are familiar with contemporary computing within Windows or graphically driven experiences. But to modernise this environment satisfactorily can be an expensive option, with a high dependency on specialised developer skills. To address this challenge, Micro Focus (LSE: MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing, and management solutions, today launched RUMBA 9.0 and Rumba+, which enable organisations to quickly modernise the end user experience in isolation from the application code. This maximises end user productivity and satisfaction without the risks associated with heavy duty modernisation development projects. Micro Focus RUMBA enhances the end user experience of legacy applications by transposing their archaic green-screen presentation onto more familiar Windows, mobile and web environments. This allows organisations to improve end user productivity, shorten business process learning cycles and cut through laborious data input/retrieval processes. Organisations will simply respond faster to market dynamics, their customers will realise the benefits of increased efficiency and investments and knowledge present in the existing mainframe applications will have been preserved. Commenting on the new release, Bruce Craig, country manager for Australia and New Zealand at Micro Focus, said: “RUMBA enables connectivity from Microsoft Windows, iPads or web browsers to virtually any host system with mission critical reliability. With wider reaching deployment capabilities, end user productivity improvement is quickly delivered through a simple point and click interface. This enhanced experience can be delivered at a pace that suits, to the entire organisation, individual departments or specific users. RUMBA is designed to modernise green-screen applications with no risk to business continuity. ” RUMBA in focus: · RUMBA 9.0 is the core server required for Rumba+ deployment. Quickly and securely connects to a range of host systems, enabling green-screen terminal emulation along with a set of popular supporting features and functionalities. · RUMBA+ introduces 3 different clients that allows the customer to modernise green-screen applications without the need of specialised knowledge of mainframe applications or Windows, iPad or web browser technologies. Easy point and click controls can be created to enhance a single green-screen or to considerably update an entire application. · RUMBA+ Desktop The Windows based client that can quickly introduce productivity enhancements to the green-screen - pop-up calendars, dropdown menus, tool tips, in line help, graphs, Google maps and more. · RUMBA+ Mobile An iPad client that enables mobile access to the application with the Rumba+ Desktop enhancements driven by native iPad functions. · RUMBA+ Web A Web client with out-of-the-box usability and immediate extended reach to the mainframe applications. Modern, fresh and user friendly interface through browser technology without the normal system overheads. RUMBA is part of a family of enterprise application modernisation technologies from Micro Focus, which help organisations transform the value of their core business systems. 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

2012-11-29T04:40:00Z borland-silk-test-now-provides-automated-testing-on-windows-8

Borland, a Micro Focus company, has announced the availability of Silk Test 13.5, its premier test automation solution. This release of Silk Test introduces support for Windows® 8, one of the first application test suites to do so, and extends Web 2.0 testing capabilities with support for the latest versions of leading browsers, including Chrome™, Firefox® and Internet Explorer® 10. Gartner has forecast the application development market to exceed $9 billion in 2012. With cloud, mobility and open source driving growth in this space, along with new operating system and browser updates, IT organisations face an increasing application testing challenge. Silk Test is valued by organisations for its ability to replace repetitive manual testing processes with accurate, easy- to-create, automated tests that check software continuously to ensure applications run reliably, to eliminate the occurrence of defects. Silk Test 13.5 provides support for the broadest range of web and application technologies, essential in an increasingly multi-device, multi-channel business environment. "Once again the Silk Test suite is providing organisations with the multi-technology capabilities necessary to meet today's software testing challenges," said Jeff Findlay, senior solution architect – APJ, at Micro Focus. "Web-based businesses using dynamic Web 2.0 technologies need to have a tool to test against browsers, browser versions and locales. Silk Test takes the pain out of this challenge by using one tool to test across all supported browsers and quickly demonstrate where applications need fixing and why." Silk Test 13.5 features include: · Support for testing applications on the Windows 8 platform and Internet Explorer 10 - Silk Test 13.5 allows customers to ensure their products are ready for Windows 8 and IE 10 which reduces the risk and complexity of delivering commercial applications on Microsoft's next generation of products. · Visual Studio® 2012 and TFS support - Silk Test's Visual Studio plug-in brings the power of Silk Test to .Net developers. Unique features like the integrated Silk Test recorder and TrueLog visual results viewer dramatically reduce test maintenance and costs when developing applications. · Enhanced process automation with SAP® eCATT support - SAP users can manage the testing process from start to finish and Silk Test provides them with full testing support for SAP which can slash SAP upgrade costs by up to 30%. · Additional Technology Updates include support for Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5, Java 7 and Flex 4.6 and make Silk Test the perfect choice for testing complex business workflows that rely on multiple technologies. The new feature additions to Silk Test 13.5 make it the most reliable, efficient and fastest test automation solution on the market, while user interface enhancements ensure it is one of the easiest to use. It is the ideal solution for multiple teams with different skill sets, working with both traditional and agile methodologies and allowing automation of even the most complex technologies. ### About Borland Originating in 1983, Borland Software Corporation is a world-class provider of requirements, test and change management solutions. As part of Micro Focus Ltd, a member of the FTSE 250, Borland offers tools that are open, agile and work across the entire Application Development Lifecycle to enable customers to build better software, faster. For additional information please visit www.borland.com. 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 Modernisation, 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 and Borland on twitter | linkedin| community

2012-11-26T06:45:00Z borland-delivers-top-tips-to-non-developers-for-mobile-application-testing

By 2013 analysts are expecting mobile app downloads to increase from 30.1 billion in 2011 to 200.0 billion in 20161. Our shopping habits, the way we socialise, find information, consume news and even bank have all been challenged by the mobile internet, with apps being created for just about everything. According to Borland, a Micro Focus company), pressure is being put on departments outside of IT, such as marketing and sales, to develop and deliver mobile apps to meet rising end user demands and expectations. However, these ‘non-developers’ often bypass or cut vital time from critical testing phases in order to hit delivery deadlines or simply because they are unaware of the associated risks. “If you are building an app that is the window into your business, it’s imperative that it is regularly tested,” said Jeff Findlay, senior solution architect – APJ, at Micro Focus. “The application may be highly creative and deliver a mind-blowing user interface, but if it’s incomplete, broken or slow it will put off existing and potential customers from returning. No one wants an app or website that falls at the first hurdle.” Continuing, Findlay said: “Functional and performance testing of native and web-based mobile applications is critical but it doesn’t have to add a huge amount of time to the development process or require deep developer skills. Automated testing specifically designed for mobile apps is the key. It ensures any potential issues are identified early and can be rectified, minimising the risk of failure that can cost time, money and reputation.” Borland provides five top tips for non-developers delivering mobile apps today: Testing time = fixing time. Often so much work goes into perfecting the application that time set aside for testing is often squeezed down, which is not a good plan. That testing time is the time you set aside to fix the application and perfect its user experience. Testing is not productive – fixing things is.Performance - it’s not “all about the app”. Most defects occurring in apps are related to the residual-data conditions, connectivity or physical memory conditions of the device. For example, it’s common that a device with lots of free memory will not reproduce a defect found on one with low available memory. Exercising the app through the testing of its functional use cases make sense, but make sure the physical conditions of the app and device are also included. Work out early what you can afford not to test. Although reliability is obviously very important, testing everything every time you change anything, and on every device is going to be too painful and time consuming - you shouldn’t even try. If it is transactional, has high traffic, or is your shop window – make sure that works, all the time, on all popular devices. Time spent prioritizing on the goal pages is the best investment you can make. Reusable tests and automation save time and money. Test automation can help, as you are able to record once and replay the test many times, which increases your coverage but not your working hours. Look to your analytics to improve quality. Inspecting a site’s analytics gives a unique insight into what the real usage is, and so gives you a head-start in understanding what really needs to work. Not only that, but analytics will also help you determine how you test the evolving site over time. What was important at the beginning of the journey is often superseded by other things – so the app's test plan needs to evolve in sync with the app. For more information on Borland’s automated mobile testing tools, please visit Silk Mobile. To win a Silk Mobile license and a Nexus 7, click and enter your details at: http://silkmobile.borland.com. 1Worldwide and U.S. Mobile Applications Download and Revenue 2012–2016 Forecast: The Appification of Everything Goes Global, IDC, May 2012 (ref: 234684) ### About Borland Originating in 1983, Borland Software Corporation is a world-class provider of requirements, test and change management solutions. As part of Micro Focus Ltd, a member of the FTSE 250, Borland offers tools that are open, agile and work across the entire Application Development Lifecycle to enable customers to build better software, faster. For additional information please visit www.borland.com.

2012-11-12T06:27:00Z driving-improvement-insurance-commission-of-western-australia-s-mainframe-migration-saves-money-and-improves-customer-service

Micro Focus (LSE:MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing, and management solutions, will showcase the four steps needed for successful mainframe application modernisation and provide a customer perspective from the Insurance Commission of Western Australia, at the Gartner Symposium / ITxpo at the Gold Coast, November 12-15, 2012. A government trading enterprise with 360 staff, the Insurance Commission of Western Australia (ICWA) is the sole compulsory Third Party Insurer for motor vehicle personal injuries in Western Australia. In the session, Glenn Myers, Chief Information Officer at ICWA, will explain why his organisation selected Micro Focus to mitigate the high cost of ownership and lack of disaster recovery capabilities of its aging Z9 Mainframe platform, while protecting the Intellectual Property embedded in its existing applications and maximising a platform that could be easily leveraged and enhanced without COBOL skills. Using Micro Focus COBOL/CICS platform running on Linux Intel servers and a DB2 UDB database, ICWA has moved applications to a new platform to deliver benefits including cost savings, higher online system availability and web services enablement. Myers commented: “At Gartner Symposium / ITxpo, we will be speaking about our business case for mainframe modernisation; in terms of the specific issues and challenges we faced with our project, the outcomes and key success factors.” The project was a resounding success. “The benefits are not just financial - the number of open system test environments that we can make available is like an internal cloud.” Session Details Micro Focus: 4 Key steps to Application Modernisation - A Customer Perspective When: Tuesday, 13 November 2012, 12:15 to 13:00 Where: Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, level 1, room 5 What: This session will fast-track your understanding of the 4 key steps to Modernise Mainframe Applications and improve IT Service Delivery. Micro Focus will present the Modernisation Journey that starts with the simplification of the application portfolio, speeding up delivery processes, and offering ‘fit for purpose’ choices for optimal application deployment. Who: · Derek Britton, Director, Solution Marketing at Micro Focus · Glenn Myers, CIO, Insurance Commission of Western Australia For more information about Micro Focus and its enterprise application modernisation and continuous quality assurance solutions, please visit Micro Focus at booth A10 at the Gartner Symposium / ITxpo or go to: http://www.microfocus.com/solutions/mainframesolution/ http://www.microfocus.com/mcro/softwarequalityassurance/ About Gartner Symposium / ITxpo Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. This event delivers independent and objective content with the authority and weight of the world’s leading IT research and advisory organization, and provides access to the latest solutions from key technology providers. Gartner’s annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of attendees’ annual planning efforts. IT executives rely on Gartner Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organizations can use IT to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency. For more information, please visit http://www.gartner.com/technology/symposium/gold-coast/. 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 Modernisation, 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

2012-11-08T08:09:00Z micro-focus-launches-enterprise-developer-personal-edition

Micro Focus (LSE: MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing, and management solutions, today announced the general availability of its free-of-charge Enterprise Developer Personal Edition product. A powerful integrated development environment (IDE) for IBM mainframe applications, Enterprise Developer Personal Edition is a simple to use, entry-level version of the full Micro Focus Enterprise Developer product for IT development professionals and students. It offers a choice of Eclipse or Visual Studio IDE to develop enterprise-class mainframe and distributed applications. Today’s businesses have to deliver new and improved products and services to gain market share and drive growth. IT plays a significant role in ensuring that business objectives are met against a background of cost control and a relentless demand for efficiency. Gartner’s worldwide survey of CIOs in 2012 confirmed IT organisations must deliver on multiple priorities without an increase in their IT budget. “IT teams need new approaches to balance the essential work of keeping the business functioning and enabling innovation initiatives to improve corporate performance,” said Bruce Craig, country manager, Australia and New Zealand, at Micro Focus. “This means addressing challenges that directly impact time to market in order to remain competitive and sustain business growth – namely skills, productivity, quality resources and integration.” Continuing, Craig said: “Enterprise Developer Personal Edition significantly improves developer agility when performing day to day mainframe development activities and helps address the mainframe skills shortage by reducing the gap between COBOL, Java and C# developers in a collaborative IDE environment. Developers will also benefit from faster productivity gains in the new environment. Our technology delivers all this and it’s completely free!” The product comes with smart COBOL editing, syntax checking and compilation to create a simple way to modernize, develop and maintain mainframe applications. To download the Micro Focus Enterprise Developer Personal Edition software or get more information on the product, click here. Micro Focus Enterprise Developer Personal Edition is the entry-level development platform of the Micro Focus Mainframe Solution – a comprehensive product suite to help organisations through the journey of delivering mainframe work load. It includes Enterprise Analyzer, Enterprise Developer, Enterprise Test Server and Enterprise Server. To find out more about the Micro Focus Enterprise product set visit: http://www.microfocus.com/transform ### 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 Modernisation, 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

2012-09-13T04:00:00Z micro-focus-boosts-application-development-effectiveness

Micro Focus (LSE:MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing, and management solutions, today announced the launch of its Borland DevPartner Studio version 11 family of products with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. DevPartner Studio enables application and system developers to trap bottlenecks, locate instabilities, and wring out potential defects from application code – all from within Visual Studio 2012. DevPartner complements the diagnostic and troubleshooting tools inside Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. DevPartner provides detailed analysis to developers searching for problems in their application logic and predicts and identifies potential issues when memory, processor, and system resources are not treated carefully in mission-critical software code. This new product release delivers tremendous value to developers and software delivery teams to automate tasks for isolating and correcting problems before new software is released to end users. Key benefits of DevPartner Studio 11 include: Coverage of a wide range of Visual Studio, .NET, and native application construction tools for applications deployed on the Windows platformIncreased developer productivity, improved problem triage, and automated code inspection, often one of the hardest and most time-consuming tasks in the development processEasy access to robust tools for development teams, allowing them to check business applications on .NET and native platforms to ensure their durability The DevPartner integration with Visual Studio delivers a significant advantage for today’s application and systems developer – improving development experience, productivity and accelerating time to market. “This tight product integration is a result of close collaboration and a commitment by Micro Focus and Microsoft to provide the best value to our customers,” said Bruce Craig, Country General Manager at Micro Focus Australia and New Zealand. “DevPartner has historically delivered award-winning troubleshooting capabilities for core applications, and now DevPartner 11 is ushering in another generation of great, stable, and effective development products designed for today’s Visual Studio developer.” DevPartner Studio’s launch within the Visual Studio 2012 integrated developer environment offers .NET, native, and web application developers solid tools for software development. It also supports Microsoft's implementation of ISO C++11, the latest C++ standard, to leverage top performance capabilities on the Windows platform. Combining leadership in application troubleshooting with the reach of Microsoft Visual Studio delivers lasting value to application and systems developers. “We’re happy to work with partners like Micro Focus to build on the benefits of Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 for the development community,” said Tom Lindeman, Director of the Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) program at Microsoft. “Having DevPartner 11 in the Visual Studio 2012 toolbox enables developers to more quickly build fast and stable modern applications. As a founding member of the Visual Studio Industry Program, DevPartner has for more than 20 years continued to grow and mature, providing top tools for professional developers." For more information on DevPartner 11, visit: http://www.microfocus.com/devpartner11. 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 Modernisation, 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

2012-09-13T03:57:00Z micro-focus-delivers-next-generation-application-development-platform

Micro Focus (LSE:MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing, and management solutions, today announced the availability of Micro Focus Visual COBOL for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. A significant step forward in the longstanding relationship between Microsoft and Micro Focus, this new development supports the work of today’s developer as well as the next generation of application developers. Thousands of organisations around the world depend on business systems running COBOL applications. They underpin their IT systems, including many business-critical operations. Developers responsible for maintaining and enhancing these systems can now access industry-leading development tools through the integration of Visual COBOL and Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. Developers using Visual COBOL from within the leading industry-standard integrated development environment (IDE), Visual Studio 2012, can now re-use, enhance and re-purpose existing enterprise COBOL applications alongside other Microsoft languages and platforms, such as C#, Visual Basic and ASP.NET. This tight product integration also increases developers’ capacity for delivering new software. Development teams, previously divided by technology disciplines, can unite and work more effectively together. Businesses running COBOL systems can now evolve and deploy them on new platforms such as .NET and the cloud, reducing the risk of not being able to find or hire professionals skilled in running legacy systems. “We’re honoured to be working closely with Micro Focus to build on the benefits of Visual Studio 2012,” said Tom Lindeman, Director of the Visual Studio Industry Partner Program at Microsoft. “Visual Studio 2012 improves the development process, helping teams of any size work more efficiently and collaboratively. By adding Visual COBOL, development teams have what they need to quickly build high-quality modern applications.” “Both Microsoft and Micro Focus are committed to leading technology innovation within the application development and modernisation market,” said Bruce Craig, Country General Manager for Micro Focus Australia and New Zealand. “We are constantly innovating for our customers and we are proud to bring the next generation of COBOL development products to today’s Visual Studio user. Visual COBOL already delivers enterprise innovation for core business applications and this announcement marks a significant step forward in integrating Visual COBOL in the modern business context.” Key benefits of Micro Focus Visual COBOL include: Ability to future-proof business-critical applications deployed on the Windows platform, ensuring continued business value from existing IT systemsIncreased developer productivity and performance, expanding resource pools and accelerating delivery cyclesAbility to modernise COBOL systems and provide access through mobile and web channels Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 significantly improves the application development experience. Faster performance, streamlined responsiveness and improved toolset capability accelerates development time and delivers the latest in user interface enhancement through Windows 8 interface development. For more information on Visual COBOL, visit: www.microfocus.com/vs2012. 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 Modernisation, 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

2012-06-22T05:48:00Z borland-software-helps-development-teams-keep-pace-with-explosive-growth-of-mobile-apps

Micro Focus (LSE: MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing and management solutions, today launched Silk Mobile™ – a comprehensive new mobile application testing solution from the company’s Borland portfolio that enables organisations to develop more advanced and reliable mobile business applications. The most complete mobile application testing solution on the market, Silk Mobile provides a comprehensive, easy-to-use approach to the functional testing of applications on mobile devices across multiple platforms including Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and HTML5. The tool’s gesture support including multi-touch, swipe, drag and drop, zoom and scrolling, is custom-designed to work with applications the way an end-user would interact with their device. As a result, mobile applications built with Silk Mobile can capture pertinent information and data by factoring in the multiple ways end users interact with different devices. To add to the application's versatility, Silk Mobile test scripts can be exported to a number of scripting languages such as Java, C#, Python or Perl. In today's digital age, mobile applications play a critical role in every organisation’s business strategy. In fact, a recent study commissioned by Micro Focus found that over 75 per cent of respondents globally plan to extend access from modernised mainframe applications to mobile devices within the next two years. Silk Mobile facilitates and enhances the development mobile applications, so businesses can stay connected to their customers and ahead of the competition. "Organisations are under continued pressure to release higher quality mobile apps faster and more often than ever before and Silk Mobile provides development teams the tools they need to deliver on time and on budget,” said Bruce Craig, country manager for Australia and New Zealand at Micro Focus. "Our goal is to make application testing easy for developers and Silk Mobile does just that. With broad support across platforms and easy-to-use visual capture capabilities, Silk Mobile is a one-stop mobile testing solution.” According to Claudio Castelli, Senior Market Analyst for Telecommunications in Asia-Pacific at Ovum, smart phone adoption across business users will continue growing alongside the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend. "Enterprises will have to contend with a greater share of their employees bringing their own smartphones to the workplace and wanting to access corporate data and business applications. With security a higher concern on the mobile platform, IT must perform more stringent due diligence to ensure mobile apps work in the same way as their desktop equivalent," he adds. Silk Mobile is part of the Silk brand of application testing products that provides businesses with comprehensive automated software quality management solutions. The Silk products incorporate an integrated testing suite to ensure that all software is comprehensively tested and delivered to the highest standards of quality and reliability. With the addition of Silk Mobile, the Borland portfolio now offers a comprehensive end-to-end mobile testing solution that delivers mobile automated testing, mobile performance testing, mobile network speed simulation, and mobile test management. Building robust, repeatable, and maintainable mobile application test suites with Silk Mobile Some of the features and benefits of the Silk Mobile testing application include: Broad Mobile OS Platform support – Silk Mobile supports testing of applications on the latest range of platforms including Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and HTML5. Regardless of corporate policy, customers have a choice: embrace the BYOD concept or continue to support standard devices. Either way, Silk Mobile is a single solution across all mobile initiatives. Easy to use because it's visual – Using the visual capture capabilities, record tests directly from the mobile device and visually create, playback, and edit. Also, visual action and verification commands can be used to add logic to test scripts without writing a single line of code. Native, Image, and Optical Character Recognition – Test capability is not limited by OS changes because Silk Mobile uses a three-tier approach to recognise navigation and screen content. Customers will never have to stop testing to wait for the latest OS platform releases. This means no delays in the test automation process. Gesture support: The way your users use it – Interact with mobile devices just like end users will. Silk Mobile supports multi-touch, swipe, drag and drop, zoom, and scrolling. The test application is also complementary towards gestures, virtual keypads, alerts/notifications and device information is crucial to capturing the actual usage of the device. Broad choice of scripting languages – Export test scripts to Borland's Silk4j, Silk4Net, jUnit, nUnit, C#, MSTest, Python or Perl. Now mobile tests can be run as part of continuous delivery processes or existing test automation suites. Integrated Test Management – Execute, schedule, and maintain exported mobile test scripts using Borland's Silk Central. In addition, Silk Central's configuration testing capabilities allows for management of a private device hub for secure testing of mobile applications. Mobile testing becomes "just another test", allowing customers to manage and track the quality of their mobile applications, whatever the device platform. For more information, visit: http://www.borland.com/products/silktest/learn/#tab-5 To download a trial copy of Silk Mobile, visit: http://www.borland.com/products/silktest/try/SilkMobile.aspx ### About Borland Originating in 1983, Borland Software Corporation is a world-class provider of requirements, test and change management solutions. As part of Micro Focus Ltd, a member of the FTSE 250, Borland offers tools that are open, agile and work across the entire Application Development Lifecycle to enable customers to build better software, faster. For additional information please visit www.borland.com. Follow Borland and Micro Focus on twitter | linkedin | community

2012-06-12T23:55:00Z micro-focus-and-microsoft-partner-to-expand-enterprise-application-development-capability

Micro Focus (LSE:MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing and management solutions, in partnership with Microsoft, has announced it will jointly launch Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.0 beta with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 RC. Micro Focus’ Visual COBOL enables application developers to re-use, enhance, and extend enterprise COBOL applications, alongside other Microsoft language platforms, such as C#, Visual Basic, and ASP.NET – all from within the leading industry standard Integrated Development Environment - Visual Studio. Millions of organisations around the world continue to rely on COBOL-based applications to run their business. Micro Focus’ Visual COBOL technology already provides a unique, integrated, and industry standard environment to develop these critical applications. COBOL developers and those already familiar with general Visual Studio development techniques will now be able to take advantage of Visual Studio 2012 RC to take those applications forward. Visual Studio levels the playing field for programming languages and Micro Focus is committed to ensuring that modern COBOL programming remains on par with any comparative technology. Key benefits of Visual COBOL 2.0 beta include: Ensuring longevity by future-proofing business-critical applications deployed on the Windows platform Increasing developer productivity, widening resource pools, and accelerating delivery cycles through its highly integrated development environment Protecting existing investment and intellectual property by modernizing and enabling business applications for .NET and Azure platforms Visual Studio 2012 RC is a significant delivery by Microsoft to improve the application development experience. Visual Studio 2012 RC is focused on improving developer productivity through faster performance, streamlined responsiveness and improved toolset capability. Visual Studio 2012 RC beta accelerates development time, improves team collaboration, and delivers the latest in UI enhancement through Metro-style interface development. “With this announcement, Microsoft and Micro Focus are teaming up to provide the best value to all of our customers,” said Bruce Craig, country manager, Australia and New Zealand, at Micro Focus. “Visual COBOL already delivers enterprise innovation for core business applications and now Visual COBOL 2.0 for Visual Studio 2012 RC provides the next generation of COBOL development products, designed for today’s Visual Studio developer.” Visual COBOL 2.0 integrates within the Visual Studio 2012 IDE offering COBOL application developers the latest innovations for software development and also supports the latest .NET Framework, version 4.5, to leverage the new development capabilities of the .NET platform. Combining leadership in COBOL application development with the power of Microsoft Visual Studio we have delivered real innovation to the enterprise application developer. “We’re honoured to have partners like Micro Focus working closely with us to build on the benefits Visual Studio 2012 RC offers the enterprise development community,” said Tom Lindeman, Director of the Visual Studio Industry Partner Program. “Core to Visual Studio 2012 RC is its focus on integrating teams, streamlining development and providing developers a complete toolbox to build leading applications efficiently. Having Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.0 in that toolbox further ensures developers have exactly what they need to quickly build fast, stable, advanced applications.” The partnership between Microsoft and Micro Focus demonstrates the companies’ ongoing commitment to lead technology innovation within the application development and modernisation market. The joint beta launch of Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 RC and Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.0 delivers a significant advantage for today’s enterprise application developer – improving development experience, productivity and accelerating time to market. For more information, visit: http://www.microfocus.com/visual-cobol2-for-visual-studio-2012rc. 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 Modernisation, 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

2012-05-25T01:04:00Z micro-focus-mainframe-solutions-providing-a-new-approach-to-business-application-service-delivery-and-innovation

According to Standish Group, 70% of CIOs believe the mainframe has a central, strategic role today. However, the mainframe poses challenges for IT teams: high operating costs, limited flexibility to support changing requirements and the need for specialized skills are all constricting the mainframe’s business value. In response to the mainframe challenge, Micro Focus (LSE.MCRO.L), the leading provider of application modernisation, testing and management solutions, is launching its Enterprise product set, which enables customers to optimise all aspects of mainframe application delivery, drive down costs, increase productivity, and accelerate innovation. Bruce Craig, country manager, Australia and New Zealand, at Micro Focus said: “It’s time the industry addressed the mainframe ‘elephant in the room’. Enormous business value is built into the mainframe environment but the applications it runs are way behind where the business needs them to be. Modernisation projects take too long, and costly ongoing increases in capacity are required. This calls for an optimisation strategy to simplify the application landscape and its delivery processes – taking advantage of much lower cost capacity that is readily available today in the form of Windows, Unix, Linux and the cloud.” Continuing, Craig said: “Importantly, the Enterprise product set delivers all this without the need to start from scratch, so organisations can build on the significant investments already made in business applications – potentially saving millions of pounds and thousands of man-hours in the process.” The Enterprise product set comprises: • Enterprise Analyzer– allows organisations to closely analyse the flexibility of applications; the technical metrics; what stakeholders or users believe is important; the cost-effectiveness of what is owned; impact analysis, and much more. Decision makers in the enterprise can leverage a clear repository of business intelligence about the application portfolio; while programming staff gain technical information that increases confidence, and improves accuracy and quality. • Enterprise Developer– delivers the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that transforms the green screen character-based mainframe development environment into the look and feel of languages such as Java. Current developers will typically work 40% more productively in the new environment, while new developers will have a familiar Windows-like interface that eliminates the steep learning curve of the mainframe environment. • Enterprise Test Server– enables organisations to free up mainframe MIPS by moving significant test cycles to a Windows server environment. By increasing available test capacity in this way, testing phases can be completed faster, quality can be improved through more extensive testing earlier in the development cycle, and delivery delays can be cut significantly. • Enterprise Server–the production deployment platform from Micro Focus which enables mainframe applications to be re-hosted “as-is” on to Windows, Unix or Linux servers and the cloud. By choosing where applications are hosted, organisations can achieve service delivery excellence, cut considerable execution costs and transform the value of applications for the business. This end-to-end solution delivers freedom of choice without the need to replace mainframe applications with a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) package or re-write applications. In this way, Micro Focus can evolve mainframe systems with greater flexibility, lower cost, and with a solution that releases maximum value for an organisation’s business. To find out more about the Micro Focus Enterprise product set visit: http://www.microfocus.com/transform 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 Modernisation, 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

2012-04-16T00:55:00Z micro-focus-brings-next-generation-application-testing-to-development-teams

Micro Focus (LSE: MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing and management solutions, today announced availability of Silk Central™ 12.0 and Silk Performer™ 9.0, the company’s latest test management and application performance solutions. The Silk product portfolio now provides a fully integrated framework to improve productivity, traceability and visibility for all types of software testing, helping organisations to achieve quality goals and meet aggressive service level agreements (SLAs). From functional testing to cloud-based performance testing, it is critical for organisations to have the right tools to spot and correct defects rapidly across the application portfolio. With the new releases of Silk Central and Silk Performer, software development teams can now fully align standard and mobile application testing efforts. The real-time visibility and collaboration provided by Silk Central’s new dashboard combined with Silk Performer’s extended support for Web and native application testing, enables development teams to catch and drive out defects earlier in the development lifecycle. With increased control and improved productivity, organisations can focus resources where they deliver the most value. “Companies continue to struggle between delivering access to business applications 24/7 and ensuring those applications meet the ever-increasing quality and performance expectation of users,” said Bruce Craig, country manager for Australia and New Zealand at Micro Focus. “By connecting the tools with processes, Silk now provides the critical, customized control over what, how, when and where teams conduct testing.” Increasing Collaboration and Communication with Silk Central Silk Central is a powerful, open, test management solution for both agile and traditional development projects that improves productivity, control and visibility for all types of software testing. With its new personal dashboard, Silk Central provides users with a fully customisable, collaborative UI that serves as the jumping off point for testers and test managers. The real-time visibility of Silk Central enables team members to find defects faster and ensure complete test coverage regardless of the complexity of the project. It adapts to fit into any process and environment and ensures all team members have access to critical information anytime they need it. The personal dashboard includes more than 10 best practice tracking reports out of the box, allowing users to quickly and easily get up to speed on reporting key tests, plan for complete coverage, control test execution and manage individual testers. Other new features of Silk Central include: Manual Execution Planning approach assists in selection, distribution, and execution of manual tests, ensuring that software development teams are working at peak efficiency so no resource is wasted during critical testing cycles. Enhanced Manual Test Execution features give test managers and testers a simple and easy way to track and execute manual tests. All test assignments and status reports are available on the personal dashboard, testers no longer need to navigate to separate activities panes for updates. Extended browser support for Google Chrome gives users a broad choice in browser types. Bringing Software Testing to the Cloud with Silk Performer The new Silk Performer solution uses Borland’s leading load, performance and stress testing, for on-premise, mobile, and cloud applications to extend web 2.0, mobile testing and cloud capabilities. Silk Performer 9.0’s mobile Web and native app simulations and usability enhancements further increase performance across any network being accessed by any device. Key benefits include: Cloud Ready Apps: With added support for Java, Java over HTTP, Silverlight and Flex/AMF3, Silk Performer now offers increased breadth and depth of web technology for the cloud, giving users more choice and ability to performance test all of their Web 2.0 applications. The combination of on- and off-premise testing with loading and reporting capabilities across three regions and seven countries, including Japan, Brazil, and the U.S., empowers teams to measure true global impact. Improved Usability: Silk Performer is now more intuitive for both new and experienced users. Fully modernized and streamlined workflows make it easier for users to install, demo and use, enabling development teams to comprehensively measure the performance and stability of their mission-critical enterprise applications. Mobile Enablement: Silk Performer now fully supports performance testing of mobile Web and native applications with out-of-the-box profiles for popular mobile devices and application types. This extensive support makes it easier to isolate and fix issues and gives users the option to test both HTTP and HTML mobile native applications. For more information, visit: http://www.microfocus.com/products/silk/index.aspx. ### 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 Modernisation, 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

2012-03-19T00:58:00Z new-caliber-release-from-micro-focus-ensures-requirements-clarity-from-inception-to-production

Micro Focus (LSE:MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing and management solutions, has announced Caliber 10.1, the latest from the company’s Borland testing and management product portfolio. The update to the Caliber product line provides even deeper integration between requirements definition and management (RDM) to help organisations increase collaboration between teams, improve the reaction time to changing requirements and reduce costs of producing quality software. There is often a void today between what applications the business requires and what is eventually produced by the IT department. Reports have shown that a considerable amount of software projects fail due to a lack of requirements, resource and realistic timings, with findings that the average organization is risking approximately US$74 million each year in IT projects . The focus of Caliber 10.1 on providing improved end-to-end requirements integration means that organisations are able to develop the right software the business needs, from the outset, removing the costs that are associated with risk. It helps establish early and ongoing involvement from all stakeholders, thereby ensuring that developer managers and business analysts can effectively manage expectations and bridge the gap that often exist between business and IT.New capabilities in Caliber 10.1 include a tighter integration between CaliberRM and CaliberRDM. The synergy between visual and text-based requirements provides better shared goals for all stakeholders, giving the software development and business analyst teams the tools needed to establish implementation consensus early on and then maintain a common vision. Using Caliber 10.1, requirements changes and traceability can be managed from inception to production, resulting in higher predictability and quality.“Caliber is about managing ideas and making sure inspiration captured on a whiteboard finds its way into a finished product,” said Bruce Craig, country manager for Australia and New Zealand at Micro Focus. “Some businesses still mismanage their requirements process and as a result sometimes have their business and development teams out of sync. Caliber keeps everyone in sync by encouraging wider participation and collaboration between analysts and developers in the definition, validation and optimisation of requirements. It’s an agile solution that gives organisations the control to capture and track the right requirements throughout all stages of development thereby ensuring the business keeps its competitive edge.” For more information on Caliber 10.1, including case studies and whitepapers, visit the Caliber solution site. Also visit the new Caliber Blog for video coverage and further news.About Micro FocusMicro 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 Modernisation, 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

2012-02-29T07:19:00Z micro-focus-advises-how-to-future-proof-it-systems-making-2012-the-year-of-re-use

Standish Group[i] has recently issued a report describing the risk of failure of major IT projects, citing the dangers of rewriting core business applications or replacing them with generic packages. In 2011, there were well-documented ERP and other software project horror stories, including the RIM and Amazon outages, highlighting the challenges and business-critical nature of having the right IT infrastructure in place. As 2012 progresses and the ramifications of the new economic world in 2012 become clear, it is important to look back and learn from the mistakes made in 2011. Gartner predicts in its recent Forecast Alert[ii]that IT spend will decline to 3.7 percent in 2012, the challenge for CIOs remains to implement software projects that demonstrate value, return on investment and provide guarantees of future success. Micro Focus (LSE:MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing and management solutions, argues that modernisation is the key, assessing existing IT infrastructure and re-using as much as possible as you modernise applications and systems. “2012 is the year of modernisation and re-use for core business systems technology,” said Bruce Craig, country manager for Australia and New Zealand at Micro Focus. “Grand plans to totally overhaul IT operations using major ERP implementations or massive system rewrites come with significant risk. Improving overall operational efficiency and supporting new business initiatives is really IT’s raison d’etre. But businesses need to be careful not to introduce risk or unknown cost into the operation. There has never been a worse time to take uncalculated business risks – major organisations are guarding against unnecessary risk-taking. Modernisation is paramount.” By helping organisations re-use what they already have – proven and valuable IT assets – the modernisation approach removes risk from IT change, enabling improvements in operational efficiency, time to market and business alignment. With over 35 years’ experience helping customers optimise their technology, Micro Focus offers CIOs four practical tips on how to approach this: 1. Look at the entire IT application landscape and determine key metrics around cost, value, complexity and risk. If the IT department has the ability to understand its current application portfolio, the business can be confident the strategy for modernisation proposed by the IT team is accurate. 2. Once the application portfolio has been mapped, review which applications can be exploited to provide additional future value. All applications should be plotted onto a Business Value versus Operational Cost chart. This will prioritize which applications should be modernised. The applications with the highest business value and highest cost have the highest impact and could provide the best business cases. These applications should be first to be modernised because the cost of these applications must be reduced. 3. Determine the appropriate supporting technology to modernise your chosen application subset(s). The use of technology will be driven by the issues discovered during your application portfolio assessment and the modernisation activities proposed. a. Taking development off the mainframe and onto Windows, for example, can dramatically expand CPU capacity for each developer, eliminating resource contention and improving delivery times. b. Moving application testing off the mainframe can break down capacity barriers, helping developers meet schedules on time and in budget. c. Moving application workload deployment off the mainframe onto a lower-cost platform can provide very rapid cost savings in terms of mainframe MIPS or software costs, as well as provide much-needed flexibility for the remainder of the mainframe environment. 4. Review and revisit your list of modernisation priorities in a regular cycle. As you change elements of your estate, revisiting the portfolio assessment and re-measuring key metrics will be an important facet of IT’s continuous improvement. Cost savings and improvements in capacity through modernisation will free up time and resources for IT innovations, such as meeting new mobile demands and giving customers or employees the ability to access business applications via the latest smartphone or tablet consumer device. Ultimately, modernising IT systems are helping many businesses worldwide, including household names like Bentley and Tesco, maintain their competitive edge. Additional Resources Find out more about modernisation strategies from Micro Focus here: http://www.microfocus.com/solutions/mainframesolution/ Further best-practice advice in modernisation: http://blog.microfocus.com/modjourney/1437/ 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 [i] The CHAOS Manifesto, The Standish Group, 2011 [ii] Forecast Alert: IT Spending, Worldwide, 2008-2015, 4Q11 Update, January 2012

2012-01-13T05:28:00Z micro-focus-teams-with-csc-to-deliver-comprehensive-software-to-banking-industry

Micro Focus (LSE:MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing and management solutions, has announced that CSC (NYSE: CSC), a global leader in providing client business and technology- enabled solutions and services, is using Micro Focus technologies to offer end-to-end enterprise software for banking, cards, payments and lending across a broader range of platforms and operating systems. CSC’s Celeriti suite makes use of Micro Focus Server Enterprise Edition, which allows customers to select fit for purpose operating platforms based on their particular total cost of ownership, security, high availability and transaction volume requirements. Using Server Enterprise Edition, Celeriti is able to provide Linux, UNIX and Windows platforms for midsize and small banks, third-party processors, and global banks wanting multiple, in-country deployments using a single codebase. This flexibility provides CSC customers with a competitive edge by decreasing time-to-market and reducing overall risk. “Micro Focus solutions help us deliver configurable, top-tier software functionality to banks of all sizes on a cost- effective platform,” said Paul Leadbetter, CTO, CSC’s Banking and Credit Services Division. “Our collaboration enables CSC to extend its offering to a broader range of platforms and meet varying banks’ cost, security and infrastructure requirements.” “When banks decide to implement a new IT solution, it is critical that they exploit rich functionalities on a stable, cost-effective platform,” said Bruce Craig, country manager Australia and New Zealand, for Micro Focus. “We have worked closely with CSC to develop solutions that enable small and mid-size banks to run their core business software on the platforms of their choice to support ongoing innovation and long-term growth.” Celeriti features a number of technology innovations including a Web portal that extends Web 2.0 technologies to the front and back office and provides a richer end-user experience through dynamic content delivery and personalisation. Reusable SOA business processes and Web services enable easier integration and maintenance of systems, which allow banks to standardise their business processes across delivery channels to improve customer service. Celeriti’s business intelligence component and data warehouse centralise data across the enterprise, allowing banks to drive business strategies based on actionable information. Celeriti also includes business rules and parameters to rapidly launch new products and services, modify business processes and respond to regulatory and compliance mandates. Micro Focus Server Enterprise Edition provides the deployment environment for applications that have traditionally functioned only in a mainframe environment to operate on a broader range of platforms. This solution ensures that existing mainframe applications can be made available with little or no change to underlying code. About CSC in Financial Services More than 1,200 major banking, insurance, investment and wealth management, and securities firms rely on CSC's global financial services team to turn their ambitions into realities. With a track record for delivering software, consulting, and IT and business process outsourcing and services at scale, CSC brings a deep understanding of the financial services business and a collaborative culture to one of the industry's most engaged client communities. For more information, visit www.csc.com/financialservices. About CSC CSC is a global leader in providing technology-enabled business solutions and services. Headquartered in Falls Church, Va., CSC has approximately 97,000 employees and reported revenue of $16.2 billion for the 12 months ended September 30, 2011. For more information, visit the company's website at www.csc.com. 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 Modernisation, 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