Enterprises have to constantly find effective ways to re-use their legacy applications and adapt to the changing needs of the business. Today even governments, at the federal, state and local authority levels, are trying to implement a centralised information system to facilitate a standard approach throughout the jurisdiction.

The case study details how Chyun Huei Health Technologies used Micro Focus ACUCOBOL-GT to develop an application that consolidated all IT infrastructure for the Taiwan Department of Health, which operates 28 hospitals across the country. The new centralized approach saved DOH US$6.1 million in ordering and inventory costs, US$17.2 million in application development costs, and US$1.7 million in maintenance fees.

Enterprises and governments alike are turning to web-based applications to counter the high costs of deploying and managing software systems. One of the recent trends in the security space is web-based security services.

IBM chief technologist Samson Tai believes moving into a “smart”, digital infrastructure is no longer an option but a necessity.

Legacy code is all pervasive. Industry analysts estimate that there are between 200 and 300 billion lines of mainframe legacy code. COBOL accounts for about 70% of that, with five billion new lines of code added each year. This article will examine various approaches to managing legacy code so that IT departments can maximize the performance of their existing applications.

End-to-end Application Performance Management refers to the IT service discipline that encompasses the identification, prioritization and resolution of performance and availability problems affecting business applications. Poor application performance reduces productivity, impacts customer satisfaction and damages IT's reputation, resulting in increased costs, lost revenue and IT inefficiency.

Contracting marketing conditions have impacted the way IT budgets are being spent. But as Paul Henaghan, Senior Vice President – Asia, Software AG, argues, technology companies can benefit from this changing environment.