Why should I trust what is basically a Micro Focus press release?

I actually had to use Micro Focus COBOL in a project once. It was awful: COBOL the worst language ever (awful syntax, no local variables!) But what's worse is that the Micro Focus product is nearly unusable (at least on unix platforms). It's loaded with copy-protection garbage, and the installer is deliberately left in a broken state so that you must call Micro Focus support (just guess what a support contract costs: it's not cheap.) This should not happen when you drop three grand on a compiler.

Summary: avoid COBOL, unless you want to rely on a company that should have been out of business long ago (and it probably will be; just wait a few years), and a language that should never have existed.