Enterprise software provider Micro Focus has entered into an agreement to acquire and merge with The Attachmate Group for US$1.2 billion in shares.

The Attachmate Group is a software holdings company with a stable of Linux distribution, device-management and file hosting products, including Attachmate, NetIQ, Novell and SUSE. Micro Focus triples the size of its business with the acquisition to approximately $1.4 billion in annual sales.

Micro Focus, which offers many enterprise products specializing in the COBOL language, is focused on software to develop and deploy enterprise applications. Aside from The Attachmate Group’s main products, the merger also gives Micro Focus a greater breadth of IT operations management, collaboration and endpoint management, legacy modernization, and cloud computing software for creating an end-to-end software stack of infrastructure software.

(Related: Why learning COBOL might be a great job move)

The deal is expected to close by Nov. 3. More information can be found in the press announcement.