The IBM Rational Cobol Generation tools are designed to allow developers familiar with Java, VisualBasic or Cobol to create SOA-enabled mainframe applications by using a platform-independent language -- Enterprise Generation Language -- that is then translated into COBOL.
"There is a perception that the [z] platform is not that accessible, that you have to have a lot of skills and do a long apprenticeship ... to create applications for the platform," said Jim Rhyne, IBM's chief architect for the enterprise software platform. "This is a combination of an [integrated development environment] and simplified programming language."
