No. 03 · The observatory
Custom COBOL and mainframe applications (cross-industry)
COBOL estates face a shrinking staff pool. Demand signals are customer-reported.
- Status
- Open
- Rank
- 2 of 35 in the atlas
- Scored
- 2026-10-05
- Report
- Back to the study
- Rank
- 2 of 35, published score 69.0
- Scoring date
- 2026-10-05, reported 2026-10-09
- Buyable
- $0.6B buyable midpoint, $11.1B to $19.0B recorded legacy spend
- Factors
- size 4, pain 3.3, AI fit 4, lock-in 2.5, crowding 2
- Coverage
- none recorded; AI-native challenger recorded
Custom COBOL and mainframe applications (cross-industry)
Ranked 2 of 35 at 69 out of 100.
Custom COBOL and general mainframe platforms across industries.
What the evidence says
The checked evidence corroborates bounded pain signals. GAO reports a shrinking pool of staff able to support selected Treasury COBOL systems. A named customer reports verified behavioural equivalence for a bounded COBOL scope. Nothing checked establishes cross-industry prevalence or a completed mainframe exit.
Providers
The card checked three incumbents: IBM zSystems, Rocket Enterprise Suite and Unisys ClearPath. IBM reports 45 of the top 50 banks running on zSystems. That is platform adoption, not a compiler count.
Unisys reports $428.1 million of FY2025 License and Support revenue. That figure mixes ClearPath Forward with other IP licences. It is not a customer count. Rocket discloses no category buyer count in the checked material.
Mechanical Orchard is the recorded challenger. Named customer SulAmérica reports 130,000-plus COBOL lines at verified equivalence on Imogen. The milestone is readiness, not a cutover or mainframe exit. Imogen’s AI-native status is recorded as unknown.
Sources:
- Mechanical Orchard customer presentation at Google Cloud Next 2026 (SulAmerica)
- Mechanical Orchard secures $50 million release
- IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS (product page)
- Rocket Software GenAI advancements release
- Rocket Software FAQ
- Unisys ClearPath Forward solutions page
- Unisys ClearPath Forward Libra Courses and Descriptions
- IBM Annual Report 2022
- Unisys Corporation FY2025 Form 10-K
The pain
Operators face a shrinking supply of specialised COBOL staff. GAO found the support pool for Treasury’s two selected systems is shrinking. Agencies may pay a premium for specialised staff or contractors. That wording is conditional.
SulAmérica’s reported readiness milestone signals modernisation demand. It is customer-reported, not independently validated.
Sources:
- GAO-25-107795 federal legacy IT systems report
- Mechanical Orchard customer presentation at Google Cloud Next 2026 (SulAmerica)
- Mechanical Orchard secures $50 million release
Events
GAO’s July 2025 report records both Treasury modernisations in progress. Planned completion dates were not yet established. The skills scarcity is a reported concern, not an established cause of delay.
SulAmérica’s Google Cloud Next 2026 talk reported verified equivalence and production readiness. No production cutover or application retirement is established.
Sources:
- GAO-25-107795 federal legacy IT systems report
- Mechanical Orchard customer presentation at Google Cloud Next 2026 (SulAmerica)
Limits
GAO evidence is a selected federal-system study, not cross-industry prevalence. The premium phrasing is conditional. No observed premium payment is recorded. SulAmérica is a readiness milestone, not a completed migration. The vendor quote evidences vendor positioning, not measured customer pain.
Sources:
- IBM Annual Report 2022
- Unisys Corporation FY2025 Form 10-K
- Rocket Software FAQ
- Rocket Software GenAI advancements release
- Mechanical Orchard customer presentation at Google Cloud Next 2026 (SulAmerica)
- GAO-25-107795 federal legacy IT systems report
- Mechanical Orchard secures $50 million release
In their words
a dwindling number of people available
Source: recorded speaker, 2025-07-17
pay a premium for specialized staff or contractors
Source: recorded speaker, 2025-07-17
find solutions they can trust
Relevant workflows
6 recorded openings. A missing mapped round is a coverage gap, not an empty field.
| Workflow | Index | Labour | AI use | Core | Mapped |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer and case inquiry lookups across mainframe screens mainframe-cobol-general:inquiry-servicing | 473 | $55.2B | 49% | non-core | 0 |
| Batch output reconciliation and spreadsheet reporting mainframe-cobol-general:reconcile-and-report | 337 | $33.5B | 14% | non-core | 0 |
| Overnight batch scheduling, monitoring and abend recovery mainframe-cobol-general:batch-operations | 326 | $17.8B | 24% | non-core | 0 |
| Transaction entry and correction on 3270/CICS screens mainframe-cobol-general:greenscreen-data-entry | 261 | $9.0B | 18% | non-core | 0 |
| COBOL/JCL change, documentation and production support mainframe-cobol-general:cobol-maintenance | 258 | $23.7B | 60% | non-core | 3 |
| Rewrite, re-platform and data migration off the mainframe mainframe-cobol-general:modernization-migration | -241 | $106.3B | 40% | touches core | 1 |
Recorded providers
Provider claims carry their recorded kind and citations. Undisclosed figures stay undisclosed.
| Provider | Products | Parent | Claims |
|---|---|---|---|
| IBM | IBM zSystems, IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS | unknown | cl-main-ibm-m1 (observation) source |
| Rocket Software | Rocket Enterprise Suite | unknown | cl-main-rocket-inc (inference) source |
| Unisys Corporation | Unisys ClearPath Forward, ClearPath MCP COBOL85 | unknown | cl-main-unisys-m1 (observation) source |
Recorded inputs
Raw scored inputs exactly as frozen. Values and units keep their recorded definitions.
| Factor | Input | Value | Count | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pain | keep_alive_share | unavailable | 6 | unavailable |
| pain | backend_failure_share | unavailable | 0 | unavailable |
| pain | app_rating_inverted | 3.845473333333333 | 3 | 3 |
| pain | failed_rate | 0.5555555555555556 | 9 | 4 |
| pain | s3_grade | weak | 1 | 3 |
| pain | mean | 3.3333333333333335 | unavailable | 3.3 |
| lockin | award_duration_months | unavailable | 4 | unavailable |
| lockin | noncompetitive_share | unavailable | 4 | unavailable |
| lockin | replacement_duration_months | 69 | 6 | 4 |
| lockin | regulator_approval | 1 | 1 | |
| lockin | mean | 2.5 | unavailable | 2.5 |
| crowding | ai_native_traction | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| crowding | funding_per_billion | 1608044.1984970674 | 4 | 1 |
| crowding | yc_2024_plus | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| crowding | mean | 2 | unavailable | 2 |
| size | users_midpoint | 10033 | unavailable | unavailable |
| size | buyers_mid | 6369 | unavailable | unavailable |
| size | midpoint | 14489651479.590528 | unavailable | unavailable |
| ai_fit | mean | 3.7060000000000004 | 12 | 4 |
| ai_fit | unanswered | unavailable | 0 | unavailable |
Recorded sources
27 recorded citations. Each link lands on the sources catalogue.
Back to the 35-category table or the explorer.