Sharing some of its good fortune and prospects for increased business with users, Micro Focus has also announced new pricing designed to open the Cobol market to new personal computer programmers and establish Cobol more widely as a micro development language. It has cut the single copy price and made the discount schedule shallower to assist single copy and low quantity buyers in moving into the Cobol market; large volume purchase terms will remain essentially unchanged. The Cobol/2 single copy development system is cut 17% to $750. Cobol/2 Workbench will sell at a single copy price of $2,500, representing an unbundling of the first-year maintenance fee of $500 from the licence fee for the software and a cut in the two together of $290 so both Cobol/2 and Workbench are available without maintenance; basic product support is provided free as before, whether or not maintenance is purchased. Micro Focus reckons that the cuts bring prices in line with those for C.
