Consider these facts from industry watchers: 70 percent of the world's data is processed by COBOL and nine out of 10 ATM transactions are done using COBOL. Thirty billion online COBOL transactions are processed daily; 492 of the Fortune 500 use COBOL, including the entire Fortune 100, and current COBOL investment tops $3 trillion. You get the idea - these legacy systems still have an important role to play in business today.

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So what does the smart enterprise do when viable programs outlive the programmer, or when the rip and replace methodology is no longer an option? The smart enterprise improves on what it already has.

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However, the goal for organizations should not be a replacement of legacy systems and therefore legacy skills, but rather, a greater understanding of what it takes to extend an application's capabilities.

At the most basic level, this means training new staff on the disciplines of old systems, and vice-versa. Don't forget to train 'old' staff on the new fangled technologies such as XML, J2EE, and .NET. Take a long hard look at existing processes and examine how they can be improved, with a more structured approach to legacy environments. Also, use external providers, where necessary, for short-term need, but not at the expense of the long-term skills management (and therefore the viability) of the enterprise.

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What's the moral of the story? The progammers who first implemented COBOL are retiring, but the work they've done is tightly woven into the fabric of every major business in the country. That makes the programs they've built and maintained far from obsolete. If they aren't broken, why replace them? Instead, go one better: upgrade. Use the people, processes, and technology around you to improve on your legacy systems.