The Early Release Program gave customers an opportunity to see how CICS applications could cost-effectively move to Microsoft .NET with ASP.NET pages, Windows Forms, and Visual Studio .NET using wizards and to provide valuable feedback to the NeoKicks development team.

"While exploring the options for replacing our CICS-based Windows NT system, that was soon going to be unsupported, we researched Fujitsu Software's NeoKicks," said Marilyn Shenn, senior vice president, CIO, Presidential Life Insurance . "NeoKicks more than fits the bill for Presidential Life's CICS requirements because not only does it work on Microsoft's strategic .NET environment but it also provides an upgrade path for our BMS screens."

NeoKicks is a pioneer CICS migration solution that brings CICS code to the .NET environment and provides standard Web Forms and Windows Forms interfaces. Coupled with the fact that Fujitsu Software's NetCOBOL for .NET is the only COBOL compiler that produces memory safe MSIL code, the unique features of NeoKicks make it a compelling product for those dealing with the financial and technological constraints of mainframe CICS.

"The NeoKicks Early Release Program, which Fujitsu Software launched in August, successfully showed early adopters how they can replace costly mainframes with reliable Windows servers which, when replacing small mainframes, might only be relatively inexpensive 2-way servers," said Ron Langer, senior director languages group, Fujitsu Software Corporation. "With the general availability of NeoKicks, CICS COBOL applications can be back in the mainstream of effective, efficient technical innovations."

NeoKicks provides the following advantages for migrating CICS COBOL applications from the mainframe:

• Offers a Windows server based solution - while application performance varies widely and is dependent on many factors, results with several early customers indicate that with NeoKicks, users can perform hundreds of transactions per second on a single 2-way Windows server.;
• Migrates the code to the .NET environment - allowing it to benefit from the best tools (in Visual Studio .NET) for maintenance and RAD, as well as placing the latest technologies fully within the reach of the migrated CICS applications;
• Transforms the CICS BMS screens into ASP.NET Web pages (Web Forms) or optionally Windows Forms. Initially the interfaces are made to look and behave like the mainframe character screens, thus providing users with a seamless initial switchover. However, the screens are true Web (or Windows) forms so the applications are freed from their character screen straightjackets.
• Uses Wizards to process CICS COBOL programs and BMS macros, so NeoKicks developers have Visual Studio projects set up for them, ready to go;
• Uses XML in the translation of BMS macros to Windows or Web Forms so users can easily customize and configure the way that the user interface is rendered in the conversion;
• Screens can be modified and extended using the highly productive Visual Studio Designers;
• Behaviors such as database transaction handling are supported by plug-in components, giving users the option to easily integrate features of their online applications with other technologies.