Bleum: Your COBOL Consultants

For being 50 years old, COBOL still "looks good for its age." A 2007 Gartner report even classified the programming language as being within its 'adult' life stage. Other newer languages, including Visual Basic 6 and Ruby, however, were classified as being 'elderly'. This is testament to the ability of COBOL to evolve and adapt over time, while also showing that the language will continue to be used well into the future.

As COBOL programmers begin to retire, companies must be prepared to equip themselves with viable replacements. As evidenced in Bleum's latest white paper on COBOL, the feasibility of translating COBOL to other languages or training up younger engineers is low. This means that you need a vendor able to fully understand your business requirements and make your COBOL code outperform your competition. Enter Bleum. Our high-quality coding, coupled with proven business analytics capabilities, can fast forward your COBOL code into the 21^st century.

Better Performance through Total Engagement Transparency

Bleum understands the complexity inherent in coding. We have built our proprietary governance tool, Hydra, to give you real-time, transparent access to your offshore projects throughout their entire lifecycle. Hydra integrates all key quality management tools, adds a client communication function, and allows you to fully understand what your Bleum partner team is doing. Through the use of Hydra, combined with Bleum's standard PMI certification for all project managers and English-only policy, clients are achieving marked results. One partner has been able to increase release time by 600% while reducing costs and expressing that they "…know better what [the] China team is doing than what the person sitting next to me is."

In 2010, Bleum achieved a 30% zero-defect rate and handled 70% of all projects with no schedule variance. Our relentless, but flexible, process-driven focus helped to deliver these results. Over the past 10 years, Bleum has developed a highly disciplined software development process we call Pearl. Pearl lays a solid foundation for on-time, on-budget delivery with minimum defects. This development approach combines the best aspects of leading software methodologies to encompass the complete software development lifecycle. It is tailored to the specific needs of the client as Bleum has found a flexible approach yields the greatest results. Add to this Bleum's company-wide CMMi5 certification and it is no wonder our clients have reported shorter release cycles with improved profitability.

This dedication to code quality, with engineers able to over perform, means that Bleum does more than simply recode. We can establish a strategy that makes the most sense for your particular business needs and the direction of your organization. Bleum specializes in reworking legacy applications, making them more cost efficient, up-to-date and surrounded by newer technology. All told, this stretches the life of your COBOL applications and allows for the introduction of new technology. This results in lower risks and a stronger, longer lasting COBOL.