The Isle of Man Government has worked with Micro Focus, a UK provider of application management and modernisation service, to remove its dependence on its ageing mainframe. The project comprised largely of moving complex mainframe applications to new platforms without impacting ongoing government services.

The new mainframe is expected to deliver maintenance costs savings of up to £1.5 million over the next six-years and to achieve a positive Return on Investment (ROI) in less than 12 months. The Government also hopes the deal will free up resources to deliver more services in other areas for the citizens of the Isle of Man.

Allan Paterson, Director of Isle of Man’s Information Systems Division commented: “We have a far-reaching vision for comprehensive, fully integrated, online government services on the Isle of Man, and moving to modern, flexible and cost-effective Windows platforms is a key element of our IT strategy. Advanced development tools from Micro Focus enabled us to migrate our critical COBOL applications from the mainframe to our strategic platform rapidly, in a highly cost-effective manner and without impacting the quality of our services.”