Invest in CobolStack

//S01 PITCH01/12

The mainframe didn't retire.
Neither did the work.

CobolStack puts mainframe- and IBM i-compatible environments in the browser. People learn on them, teams test on them, AI agents run code on them, and every modernization change is proven by byte-comparing what actually ran.

COBOLSTACKELEVATOR PITCHREADY

//S02 PROBLEM02/12

A permanent estate with a staffing problem

~220B	lines of COBOL still in production, under an estimated 43% of banking systems and 95% of ATM swipes [1]
~70%	of organisations struggle to find the skills to modernize the mainframe estate [2]
69%	of IBM i shops rank skills as their #1 concern, above security for the first time since 2017 [3]
66%	of 29 mainframe-to-cloud migrations (2020–2025) failed their stated objectives; 24% completed, then reverted within a year [4]

Learning and testing both need a mainframe to practise on. Real ones are scarce, expensive and too risky to break.

[1] Reuters via CNBC, 2017 · [2] Kyndryl, 2025 · [3] IT Jungle on the 2026 IBM i survey · [4] 29-migration outcome study, 2020–2025

//S03 WHY.NOW03/12

Why now: code got cheap, proof did not

97%	of practitioners see the mainframe as a long-term platform or a home for new workloads, the highest reading in the survey's history [5]
65%	of mainframe shops already use generative AI on mainframe code [5]
70%+	of mainframe exit projects started in 2026 are forecast to miss their intended benefits because GenAI's capability was overestimated [6]
22 Nov 2025	SWIFT ended MT/ISO 20022 coexistence; domestic regulators are cascading the mandate, e.g. BSP Circular 1223 [7]

Whoever or whatever writes the code, somebody has to prove it still computes what the old system computed. That proof is the bottleneck.

[5] BMC 20th Annual Mainframe Survey, 2025 · [6] Gartner press release, 18 Jun 2026 · [7] A-Team Insight on the Nov 2025 ISO 20022 cutover

//S04 SOLUTION04/12

Unlimited safe iron, in the browser

—— CobolStack Platform Menu ——

Independent clean-room implementations built from published specifications. No IBM code; not affiliated with IBM. Specification-conformant, never "identical".

//S05 PROOF05/12

Numbers, not adjectives

2,197automated test and battle suites across the platform

53,937assertion sites in those suites, statically counted (a floor)

770Klines of test code

15synthetic estates running nightly cycles: banking, cards, insurance, payroll, utilities and more

13/13verification-toolkit release gates green, full-stack, in one sitting

104/0differential cases against an independent XML-schema engine / disagreements

The platform's own numbers, printed by derivation scripts over the repository and by the suites themselves; see cobolstack.com. We will run them in front of you.

//S06 MODEL06/12

Licensed software, recurring by design

Licence	proprietary and licensed, not sold; metered per instance, per core or per seat; annual subscription, or monthly when we host
Support & maint.	annual, priced as a percentage of the licence fee; fixes and upgrades included while active
Engagements	fixed-scope: seam assessment, ISO 20022 conformance, migration verification, rehearsal environments priced per instance per month
Training	self-paced courses, instructor-led cohorts and corporate programmes on shop-standard images
Deployment	hosted by us, BYOC in the customer's AWS or Azure, or on-premises (air-gapped supported), all under the same licence

Details: licensing & support · engagements · corporate training. Every quote is sized to the estate; we don't publish prices.

//S07 MARKET07/12

Who buys: every team that touches the estate

//* WHERE   banks, insurers, payments, government and retail estates
//*         on z/OS and IBM i, where the platform is staying:
//*         72% of practitioners forecast capacity growth [5];
//*         ~3 in 4 IBM i shops run half or more core apps on it [8]
//* BUYERS  L&D teams training a workforce that is now 66% millennial
//*         or Gen Z [5]: they need hours on the system, not headcount
//*         dev/test teams that need environments without LPAR queues
//*         modernization programmes and their integrators: rehearsal + proof
//*         payments and compliance: ISO 20022 conformance evidence

We don't quote a total-market figure we can't trace to a method.

[5] BMC 20th Annual Mainframe Survey, 2025 · [8] Fortra IBM i Marketplace Survey 2026

//S08 TRACTION08/12

Built, live and in evaluation

Live	SteelFrame and SteelFrame X running in the browser today, with the Studio developer workbench
AI agents	two MCP servers with public docs; access issued per organisation
Evaluation	an enterprise logistics group is evaluating the platform this quarter
Courses	CS100 and CS105 self-paced and certificate-bearing; a catalog from CS100 to CS470 across developer, IBM i, advanced and ops tracks; free course videos on YouTube
Tooling	ISO 20022 conformance toolkit, seam analyzer and golden-run verification, available today

Commercial metrics are not published on this page: email us for details.

//S09 MOAT09/12

Why this is hard to copy

Clean-room	built from published specifications, with no IBM code, so we can license it directly
Both sides	z/OS, IBM i and the seams between them. Most analysis vendors parse one platform and stop at its edge; we run both sides and compare the bytes
Breadth	COBOL, HLASM, PL/I, REXX, Natural, Easytrieve, SAS-language; VSAM, DB2-class, IMS, IDMS-class, Adabas-class; CICS, MQ; RPG, CL, DDS
Evidence	byte-true EBCDIC and packed decimal, behind a 770K-line test harness
Practice	built and taught by mainframe professionals with 20+ years on these estates

//S10 STATUS10/12

Where we are, stated plainly

//* AVAILABLE  environments · courses · ISO 20022 toolkit · seam analyzer
//*            · golden-run verification · support & maintenance
//* LICENSED   testbed scope: training, dev, test, demo/POC,
//*            conformance bench, modernization rehearsal
//* GATED      production runtime, targeted end-2027, on five gates:
//*            staffed production support · written SLA with liability
//*            cover · source escrow · one reference workload 90+ days
//*            in production · completed security assessment
//* ROADMAP    DRDA proxy · IBM i journal CDC · CI runners · observability,
//*            each on a named trigger

TESTBED TODAYPRODUCTION GATEDEND-2027

//S11 TEAM11/12

Practitioners, not presenters

Experience: our founder and team are mainframe professionals with more than twenty years of experience
Disciplines: DevOps · application development · modernization
Model: deliberately small: customers deal with the senior people from the first conversation through delivery
Hubs: Manila and Singapore