Doug,

Could you be a little more specific in where to find the referenced article.  I looked around for a long time (ok, I was reading all the other good stuff), but wasn't able to find the info on the Gartner Group article.

>>> Doug Becker <[log in to unmask]> 02/12/01 01:29PM >>>
The Gartner Group has an article on this very topic on their web site passed along by http://cobolreport.com/ newsletter this month.

Gartner concludes that the migration to Java will not be quick, easy, or cheap. 

They say that through 2005, a business will spend an amount equal to the salary of a developer to move him or her from COBOL to Java and that they'll have to give a 20% increase in salary to retain them, not to mention the programmer down time and training costs during the transition.

Sounds like a WIN-WIN for the COBOL programmer who is lucky enough to be retrained to be proficient in Java [or is plucky enough to learn to be proficient on their own].