Subject: CM First Group August 2026 Newsletter

Explore the future of modernization

 August 2026

In this issue...

  • Featured: How to Read IBM's Product Lifecycle Signals (Without Losing Sleep) - CM First Group

  • Conference: Get your free virtual passes!

  • Broadcom Support: Let us Help You Get the Support You Need

  • Article: DLA moves its catalog system off a 35-year-old COBOL platform - Federal News Network

  • Intelligence: Further Reading on the Web

15th CA 2E / CA Plex Worldwide Conference

Virtual passes: valuable and free!


Our free AI Day Deep Dives and Keynote Sessions virtual passes are in high demand, and they're still available.


If you can't make it in person to the conference next week, these are the next best thing to immerse yourself in the latest CA 2E and CA Plex AI, or take in the latest from Broadcom and IBM straight from the source. 


Attend live or stream when you have the time. You can even pick up both passes and have them in your back pocket when you need them.


More details about both passes are below our headline article!


Or get yours now →

Heads Up

How to Read IBM's Product Lifecycle Signals (Without Losing Sleep)


Article 3 in our PL/I series zooms out from the specific rumor to the pattern behind it: how IBM stages deprecation announcements, and why "plans to end support" feels like a countdown clock but usually isn't one. 


Includes two new details on the PL/I Compiler's economics and a possible conversion path, plus a pointer to this year's conference as the most direct way to ask Broadcom and IBM in person.


Read the full article  →

Conference

Go virtual!


The 15th CA 2E / CA Plex Worldwide Conference runs August 31 through September 2 in Nashville, and this year's theme, "Race to the AI Future," is exactly the conversation many IT leaders are having internally right now: what AI actually changes for teams running model-driven and legacy environments, and what it doesn't


Speakers include Chi Chen, Broadcom's CA 2E/CA Plex Evangelist, and IBM's Tim Rowe, Business Architect for Application Development on IBM i, alongside practitioners who run these systems every day.


If Nashville isn't in the travel budget this year, the virtual pass brings the conference to you.


You'll get live access to the same sessions the in-person audience sees, from platform roadmaps to modernization strategy, without the flight, the hotel, or three days out of the office. For leaders weighing what's next for a CA 2E or CA Plex estate, it's the most concentrated dose of roadmap clarity and peer experience available anywhere this year.


Register now →

Announcing CM evolveIT 11.7


Available for Streaming: Join us for informative, hands-on sessions focused on the new CM evolveIT 11.7 release. 


Tailored for future-minded developers, these sessions showcase groundbreaking enhancements aimed at revolutionizing your code analysis and transformation workflows. Expect hands-on demonstrations that you can take to your development workflows right away.

Watch a webinar now...

Mainframe COBOL

Latest Advances in Mainframe COBOL Code Analysis and Transformation

Learn about cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools that promise streamlined analysis and transformation processes, automated tools that convert legacy COBOL code to Java, and advanced code slicing.


IBM i

Latest Advances in IBM i Code Analysis and Transformation

Learn how to cut your analysis costs by up to 80% with new capabilities. We'll demo new CA 2E (Synon) and CA Plex superpowers, AI and Code slicing innovations, and improved support for DB2 and COBOL and more.


Heads Up

DLA moves its catalog system off a 35-year-old COBOL platform


The Defense Logistics Agency just retired a 35-year-old COBOL catalog system — not with a risky big-bang cutover, but through five years of disciplined, iterative delivery that shrank release cycles from 120 days to 60 and kept the legacy platform running in parallel until the replacement proved itself. 


DLA's CIO is candid about what forced the move: mission needs the old system simply couldn't support. We chose this story because it shows, in concrete federal-agency terms, that successful modernization is a sequence of well-understood increments rather than a single leap of faith.


Read the full analysis at the Federal News Network →

 Broadcom Support 


Many enterprises struggle with obtaining Broadcom support for their CA 2E (Synon, COOL:2E) or CA Plex systems


If you're working with an older unsupported release, upgrading your IBM OS, or otherwise under the shadow of lapsed maintenance, we can get you back on Broadcom support based on your unique situation. We specialize in all sizes of customers.


Fill out our 2 minute form and schedule a no-commitment fifteen minute conversation with a CM First Group technical rep.

CM First Support

Current CM First Group customers can access tutorials and submit support tickets at support.cmfirstgroup.com.

Current Releases


CM WebClient 1.8.8 (with nightly builds) For details, go here.

CM Matchpoint ALM 7.0 Build 004. For details, go here.

CM evolveIT 11.7, last supported 10.6
CM M3 2024 Edition
CA Plex 7.3, last supported 7.2.1 (as of October 31, 2024)
→ Details can be found here at Broadcom (login required)
CA 2E 8.7.4, last supported 8.7 (as of October 31, 2024)
→ Details can be found here at Broadcom (login required)
Contact CM First to learn more: info@cmfirstgroup.com

Intelligence