There are lots of versions of COBOL used in the industry and as well as in the academe or training institutions. In the mainframe world, COBOL2 is the version employed. Microfocus COBOL is utilized in training facilities to teach mainframe COBOL to save cost which is very expensive even for big companies. The PC-based COBOL simulates the mainframe environment including the native mainframe Language called JCL (Job Control Language).
On the IBM i (AS400) platform alone, several versions are used. There are actually 3 major COBOL standard (ANSI - American National Standard Institute) namely COBOL68, COBOL74 and COBOL 85. In my experience, I did handle a lot of COBOL/400 or COBOL OPM (Original Program Model). These are based on the COBOL 85 standard. Another version was released, the Integrated Language Environment paradigm of IBM that exploit different languages like Cobol, RPG, C and Java which can be mixed together to take advantage of its strong features and create powerful business applications.
As for me, most of the installations I've worked on in the IBM i platform were still using the COBOL/400. Business applications in several industries like banking, healthcare, airlines, manufacturing and other industries were coded in COBOL. Of course maintenance programmers are needed to resolve issues and enhance the existing system to up the level of service both within the company and more importantly the customers. COBOL is still widely used in the development of new business applications. Many estimates claim that there are about 200 billions lines of COBOL in existence that run 80% of business programs though most are used on legacy systems deployed on mainframe computers. COBOL is the preferred language for business applications next to RPG in IBM i platform.
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