To our loyal developer community:
Today, Wednesday February 8, 2006 at 1am Pacific Time, Borland announced plans to seek a buyer for our IDE product lines that include Delphi, C++Builder, C#Builder, JBuilder (and Peloton), InterBase, JDataStore, nDataStore, Kylix, and our older Borland and Turbo language products and tools. The goal is to create a standalone business focused on advancing individual developer productivity using the people inside Borland who are focused on the success of these award winning products.
It is not a trivial decision to separate our IDE business from our ALM business. As we look back over the past two years and how we have operated as a company, we have continually had to weigh every dollar investment in our ALM and developer products. All too often we have chosen to invest in ALM, because of our stated direction around ALM growth and market opportunity. But we all know that our loyal customer base demands more. There is tremendous potential that has been untapped due to the company’s focus towards an enterprise go-to-market model, with an emphasis on a more consultative, lifecycle sale forcing us to invest more into our ALM products, ALM marketing, and our enterprise field model. This is a very different model from our mostly channel-focused, direct-to-developer marketing, and delivery model (using shrink wrapped boxes and e-shop downloads).
Focus is a key success factor in business. With this announcement, both companies will have the focus they need to thrive and help our customers be successful. I think it’s great that Borland is letting us be part of a new focused company that brings together the team that is passionate about developers and development. We want to continue to create the best solutions and technology for the benefit of you, our community of developers. We are developers working on developer products for our customers who are developers. This is a special relationship that is unique in software. We get to work on products that we use ourselves and that our developer community love.
I started using Turbo Pascal v1.0 in November of 1983 when Philippe Kahn gave me a copy at Comdex Las Vegas. I put it in my IBM PC and knew immediately that this was something different. From that day, I knew I wanted to go to work for Borland. I started working at Borland on June 17, 1985 and for the past 20+ years I have had the pleasure of being a part of a great company and a great community of software developers. I’ve had the luxury and pleasure to manage the compiler group in R&D in the early Turbo Language days. For the past 15 years I’ve run Developer Relations allowing me (and our team) to travel around the world to visit with tens of thousands of programmers. I get to come to work every day and collaborate with the best developer focused software engineers on the planet.
I’m really excited to be moving to the new company. We’ve got the right team members, we’ve got the tool and component partner eco-system, we have the authors, trainers, consultants, and we have the most important part – a loyal community. Our new company will be focused completely on you and your success. Yes, both companies will have a focus on software development. Both are going to advance the state-of-the-art and best practices. They’ll just do it in different ways. Ours will do it by focusing on developer productivity and building great application development products using our award winning IDEs, tools, component libraries, class libraries, and database technologies. Borland will do it by addressing the needs of larger organizations, helping them optimize their software delivery.
I was asked today by Daryl Taft of eWeek magazine, "As Borland’s longest term employee, how does the spin-off hit you?" I answered by saying, I am moving forward as part of the new company with a huge smile on my face and a small tear in my eye.
I want to assure all of you that we are here in Scotts Valley, and around the world, working on future versions of Delphi, JBuilder and our other products. We are still listening to your needs, issues, and suggestions. We are tracking with the new platform initiatives for Windows, .NET, Java, open standards, and emerging technologies that you want to leverage.
This is the right thing to do for our IDE business. It’s the right thing to do for Borland’s ALM focus. Our priority is to ensure a smooth and successful migration for our developer customer base, and create a vehicle for giving it greater investment, focus and growth. This is not the shutting down of a product line, but the empowering of it. This move is in the best interests of our customers, company, and community.
The buyer of our IDE product lines has not yet been identified, but I and other members of our developer team are working with Borland’s executive management to ensure that we identify the right buyer who will advance the IDE business. Borland is committed to its customers first and foremost, and taking care of their ongoing needs. We will keep you informed along the journey.
Go Borland. Go New Company. Go Developers!!!
David Intersimone, "David I"
Vice President, Developer Relations and Chief Evangelist
Borland Software Corporation
{ 210 } Comments
The big question is who the buyer will be. A buyer like Oracle would in my opinion be disastrous for the product but a company like Google would probably be a good thing. Google has a habit of pushing what they have whereas Oracle would just bury the product in some back room and try and harvest the customers. I think this is a very positive move for the product.
Cheers
Dean
Which one of the two new companies will continue to carry the "Borland" name though? Sounds like the ALM group will and the IDE products will be rebranded… sounds like a real big mistake to me.
Refocusing on the IDEs and splitting off the ALM stuff sounds like a really good idea indeed from my small-shop-POV but I really think it should have been done the other way round.
I think the name "Borland Delphi" or even "Borland Developer Studio" has a much (much!) bigger market appeal and recognition today than "Borland CaliberRM" or whatever has. For the ALM products it would be no loss losing the name as hardly anyone already knows about them anyway.
IMHO the "Borland" name *must* stick with the IDE products! That’s what 99% of people will associate it with. Don’t leave it behind!
I’m pretty sure that an IDE shipping under the name of "[New Company] Developer Studio" will have chances of success only marginally better than those of a completely fresh startup…
Best of luck to all of you!
Hrm lets construct some possible name:
Microsoft C# Builder…why have two C#s?
Google JBuilder…hrm
Sun Developer Studio…vomit
IBM InterBase….nahhhh
RemObjects Delphi…why not
AutomatedQA C++ Builder…sounds good (probably overkills the company :))
It seems to be a good idea. Yet I am worried. My biggest fear is that some company buys them and then stops developing on these products forever. That would mean the end of our popular development products.
My biggest problem is that C++ and Java are compilers that are also created by other companies. But my preferred choice is Delphi and the new owner might decide that there’s no more market for a Pascal compiler. Or they decide to redo the whole compiler and add all kinds of silly "improvements".
I also wonder if this means that Kylix will return again. Or CBuilderX… Both products have been commercial failures for Borland yet they are still interesting products for developers.
Let’s hope it won’t be Microsoft Delphi in the future… Microsoft has no reason to continue any support for Delphi since they would prefer more sales of their Visual Basic product…
Then again, maybe some company will take over the IDE and add some very good improvements to these products. The Delphi VCL still has some nasty minor issues that need to be resolved. (Ever tried to tile windows from the taskbar with only your Delphi application running? Noticed that it only fills half the screen afterwards?) Maybe some more platform-independance and support for mobile devices. (Either directly or through the Compact Framework.)
And of course the price will be important. If the "new Delphi" will be more expensive than the old one, I fear the number of users will drop even further. Especially Delphi is very popular amongst developers. I hope Delphi doesn’t lose most of them. (Fortunately, I also have experience with C++, Java, VB and web development so I have choices.)
Borland has been my "teacher" in my early days of programming. I remeber with tremendous joy the times when I used Borland Pascal 7.0. It was *the* IDE of those times and (without any shame) I keep using it from time to time… does the jobs fast.
Now, ’bout the selling, I hope this is for the best… anyway, I will always say: "Borland Delphi" or "BCB" (short for Bornald C++ Builder). Kinda’ bringhs a tear every time
M.D.
Wim,
if MS were really interested in keeping their VBers and increasing VB sales they sure did not let that interest show during the last few years… seemed more like they did everything they could to get rid of them…
Oliver
Never change a good thing !
Remember the 90’s when Borland changed names into Inprise?
I think, if Borland reminds themselfs of that period, the choice is easy : keep the Borland brand at te developping side…
I can’t imagine a good party right nox, except for perhaps Google.. but knowing that I, amongst many onthers, have build my whole career upon Borland Products (from Turbo Pascal 4.0 upto Delphi 2006), and it would be a big loss to let that experience go away by selling these magnificent products to companies like Microsoft or Oracle, companies that only want to keep there hands on others information to push their strategy all over the world.
Please, don’t kill my Borland Delphi
I’m sorry but I don’t think development "tools" will survive. I think that they (Delphi et al) will go the way of some of the other Borland products that have been hived off - into oblivion.
In 1995 I moved to Delphi from VB it seems I made the wrong choice. At least I still have my VB skills.
Further comment must wait until new owner is revealed.
IMHO, Borland is throwing away its biggest fans and loyal customers!
You know what? The most visible difference between Delphi developers and VS developers is that Delphi developers love their tool and do whatever it needs to defend it!! With their blood if needed!
Don’t abandon your fans… people know Borland because of the IDEs and they like Borland because of that!
I see many people moving to Microsoft in a short therm…
I’m from Brazil where Delphi is still one of the most used tools… people down here won’t like that at all!
I must say that I feel somewhat sad reading this post by David.
I hope you guys at "Borland?" give the developer community some answers really soon about the new buyer and any future plans for the IDE products.
I think everyone can agree that a product with an unclear future is an unsafe choice.
Despite Davids deceptive happines in this post, I feel like this is the start to the end. And that scares the living crap out of me.
Having programmed in Pascal and Delphi for 20 years, I can only be very sad about this. I remember the day I choose to work with Pascal instead of C, because it felt better.
I hope the marketing dept stays all with the old Borland. They are the ones that screwed up, with high upgrade prices for products that offered little else.
This scared new programmers away. I don’t have any numbers, but I guess the average Delphi programmer is now an old guy, like me.
Now the board is selling the IDEs. I hope they give the developer comunity some consideration, instead of just looking to the better price tag.
Microsoft aquire Delphi ??? !!!
Visual Delphi or VD for short??? Very unfortunate terminology!!!
RVK.
What can I say???
Hello, All.
It’s very strange that Borland "seek for buyer". If it was said "Delphi goes to ABC Ltd" it will be not so scaring.
Also, what about database line - InterBase, JDataStore, etc? They changed head of database department recently and, not it’s obvious, prepared it to sell.
How it can be possible to sell everything. It looks like new Borland CEO is from Wallmart?
I hope good news will come soon. Or nobody will trust Borland in the future.
Sincerely,
Alexey
Why not open source the development tools ? It would keep the Borland deeloping Tools brand, would delegate the development, would certainly expand the user base and in the long term the tools would be ported to a lot of platforms.
I agree with Gustavo Chaurais … here in Brazil Delphi is a major brand and open sourcing it would be very interesting.
I know that selling the development tools would bring revenue to the company, but open sourcing it would keep the brand and still let Borland focus on the products that it feels like the best to invest into.
I appreciate the announcement and also the plan to keep the IDE teams intact.. but it is still very depressing. And will remain depressing until we actually see the first new Delphi version after the transition.
JoeH
Oh God, please don’t let it be Computer Associates, please, almost anyone but CA! -Greg
sigh…
i love c++ builder.
now i use vc++.
but i love c++ builder for ever .
I bet Microsoft will get it . And what then ?
This is disasterous.
We have been using Delphi since version 1 and love it. We have millions of lines of code and 10 years invested in Delphi. Migrating to some other development tool could be painful, to say the least….
I sure hope the Borland are not about to stab us in the back.
my condolescenses !
ive been a borland user since mideighties, first turbo pascal, then turbo c all the way until bcb 6.
last year i switched to ms vs, cause bcb and bcbx looked pretty dead to me.
with c#, anders hejlsberg has shown where borland could be today, if they had a different management.
may i suggest that borland-ide keeps the borland name, and borland-alm calls themself inprise ?
good luck to all the borland ide staff !!
Thank you for the many comments. The teams are here working on the products that are on our roadmap. We will continue to deliver updates and new versions of our products. We will show you by executing on our plans that are public.
Do you think that the new IDE will be cheaper because it won’t include the extra stuff that a lot of us don’t use?
I just listened to an interview Anders Hejlsberg gave to Channel 9. When asked why he left Borland in 1996 he said thinks like: There always were struggles towards the direction of Borland whether they should produce development tools or enterprise solutions. Also he mentioned that the management wanted Borland to be something which they were not.
All in all that sounds very current. I am afraid Borland doesn’t know the direction nowadays neither. Who should see a future in Delphi if Borland does not? Honestly, i only see a future for Delphi if it gets selled to Google (because they innovate and have the resources) or if its OpenSource. At the long run their will be no chance for Borland to compete with microsoft, even when their focus on ALM or whatever.
Sadly yours,
Christian
This could be good but I think you need to let the Borland brand go with the developer tools to ensure their continued success. The Borland name to 99% of people stands for quality developer tools not ALM products. Let the company that can best leverage that mindshare make best use of the name.
I love computer programming and Delphi. I hate Microsoft Programming Solutions.
But I’m seeing they are killing Delphi and BCB.
Why??? Where is Kylix???
I hope you don’t sell the profucts or guide the buyer in strategy.
Regards
I as well do hope that Borland keeps C++Builder,Delphi going on and not turn to dust as I’ve used both for years. I would hope that the Borland name will still be associated with either product(or all for that matter),that being a name us programmers have grown to love. I hope this is NOT a mistake to sell those off.
Now let’s call it "Frank" instead of "Borland"
Now let’s call it "Frank" instead of "Borland"
This is a complete and utter disaster. I read that "win win win" spiel by Nielsen the other day and my thought was "He sounds like a loser". It hasn’t taken long for my opinion to be confirmed. This looks like a combination of daylight robbery (the good name & goodwill of the Borland name) and asset stripping (selling the family silver). The deadbeats responsible for this will stuff their accounts with millions, destroy the company and fly off like locusts to devour some other healthy business. What are you going to call the new company, Outprise?
Our company has been using Turbo/Borland Pascal and Delphi for the past 20 years. We started out running Turbo Pascal on CPM on the Z80. We just recently purchased 2 new versions of Delphi Architect to further invest in Borland. We are a small company and this was a BIG investment for us. A very major part of our business is based on products developed with Delphi. It deeply desturbs me that Borland is now abandoning this wonderful product. I cannot believe that Borland would pray on customers by getting us all to by this "wonderfull" new 2006 version and then lay this kind of news on us after we buy it. I hope they are planning on giving all of the proceeds to this new company to help get it started. I hope this product really can continue in the future and be even better. I doesn’t sound so good to me though!
Goodbye Delphi.
It was nice knowing you.
Sniff.
I started with Turbo C++, moved up to BC++, then C++Builder. A few years ago most of my development switched over to Java, and I ended up choosing Eclipse as my IDE and Firebird as my database-of-choice. Even though I "jumped ship" from Borland some time ago, I’m sorry to see the development tools being sold off. It doesn’t sound like a promising move to me.
keep silent and thinking about other…
i use turborland for 20+ years, i already set my mind to work with BDS2006: bilinguage (delphi and BCB) two great IDE, if you separate, you cut my brain, my soul and my heart in to two broken parts.
So, what is happening to the Classics line?
Would you consider open sourcing your CodeWright editor, and the other fine tools in the classics line?
I would be more than willing to help out in any way I can to support CodeWright, which is in my opinion still the best code editor ever written for the Windows environment.
Thank you,
- Matt Secoske
As a x-borland-man(I worked for Borland in Brazil from 99 to 2002), I can say just one thing: "Thanks Borland for everything"!
thanks Borland,good luck
Borland kill himself! This is a VERY BAD plan! The ALM will be NEVER success! Oh, my Borland! Why do you leave me? Tears….
OOPS!!
Shock me a lot.
It is time see goodbye to Delphi,C++ Builder,JBuilder~~~.
OOPS!!
Shock me a lot.
It is time say goodbye to Delphi,C++ Builder,JBuilder~~~.
I feel sad…
Maybe Google is the best buyer, ^o^
i think this can’t be happened … without ide , borland is nothing….
what a nice roadmap of IDE and Delphi and now what a great change of the plan. If a person cannot do as his words, he is a worse one, so as a company.
i do not know what’s ALM, without development tool, without libary and IDE, how "rule the world"? may be the excited speech is a bowshit
Why you kill C++ Builder in BDS?
Forgot about Interprise? Why make it so easy for MS? This will kill Delphi and every developer will start using Visual Studio. I have used Borland since TP3, BDS2006 will be the last one
I hope M$ buying Delphi and JBuilder and trash C#Builder.
Borland’s Marketing is really for me stupid with the policy and everything I have suffered in the past.
I hope Bill Gates don’t trash Delphi like they did with Foxpro.
To me, the main difference between Borland and Microsoft has allways been that the Borland management were people who lived for their products instead of chasing the holy grail of being the biggest and most wellknown company in the world.
In the bad old days of Inprise, this difference threatened to get lost, but the Borland management saw their mistakes just in time. I hope they will also this time.
2007:
borland plans separate company ALM into
A, L, M
borland plans to seek a buyer for L, M product lines
2008
borland plans separate company A into
/, -, \
borland plans to seek a buyer for -, \ product lines
Phillppe Kahn. Take Delphi back and goes US$99 again.
ha ha ha !
Is it a joke ?!
Is it a pool to count the number of delphi developpers ?
"David I" really has a sense of humour…
Shocked, Surprised.
With all thier plans about future versions, and the success of Delphi 2006 this step shocked me.I have been using Delphi since version 5 and have never thought to use anything else(Never peeped in java or MS technologies).
I hope a financially strong and focused company buy’s all this products.
Long live delphi…………..!Live for Ever…….! You are immortal like my soul.
Pranav Joshi
There is a good quotes
What ever is happening or what ever going to happen is always good and brings bright future, so let’s hope for the best.
I am using Delphi since 7 years and know the strength of Delphi, so there is bright future only.
When the FoxPro was bought by Microsoft, FoxPro is dead.
When the Aureal was bought by Creative, A3D is dead.(SoundCard)
When the ICQ was bought by AOL, ICQ is nearly dead.
…..
I don’t wanna see that the Delphi&Kylix is also dead.
So, I think the best buyer is Google or IBM.
well, all the way it pass through the hell
what’s going to the Company?
I’d believed in Borland
but now…
well it seems we have to find another developer tools!!!!!!!!!
We are using D5 and are in the process of considering what .NET Development package to use.
Should it be D 2006 or Microsoft VS 2005 ?
We have only just been to a Borland D2006 presentation and it looked promising including the commitment this year to .NET v2 support.
Now I am feeling very shaky about the Borland route.
This is a long term decision for us and now the Borland IDE does not seem to have such a plan.
Lets hope they firm up what is actually going to happen very quickly.
Selling Delphi into new company is not necessarily a bad think. I used Turbo Pascal from version 3.0, but also Turbo basic (today Power Basic - www.powerbasic.com), Turbo Prolog (Visual Prolog - www.visual-prolog.com) and dBase (www.dbase.com).
It will survive, but only current user will know abouit it.
I think borland is not selling the product line. it was reducing the stafftrimmer and let go the excellent architecture of delphi
I am just thinking who will buy this products ?
first thing imho is that Buyer should have enough cash to buy these products line so it could be oen of the following .
IBM : They have database , very complete Development suite (Rational stuff) they have
database and whatever other stuff that borland put on auction
Sun : They put too much money on their development tools in last year and looks very
promissing , so they will not buy Jbuilder , they will ship Postgre with solaris and
Derby with their java stuff , so they are not buyer of j* stuff
Oracle ? No i dont think that they come and buy jbuilder , they have released Jdev 10g R3
some times ago and it is free for development purpose. they have database and application server too.
but they come and enter win 32 / .net development ? I think it is possible because they like to compete with MS
and any other small/big company as Larry ellison like competition
Micrososft : it is one that has money and Strenght to buy this products , but why should
they buy Delphi ? to kill it and put it in a back room to dominant the IDE market for win+.net applications by
their VS suite, Perhaps
Microsoft and Interbase / nDataStore / jbuilder /JdataStore :
I think They may buy jbuilder too , just to say that they have something to say in java world.
nDataStore is likeful for them too. but none of IB and JdataStore is in wish list
Google : No , I think they will not buy Jbuilder or any other stuff , they do not like entering this merciless Market so soon.
CA : They are far away of buying anything , i remember that they made their Database Open source , so they will not buy
a forked database , nor some IDEs that does not bring benefits for their last owner
Bye bye.
Any new owner (if one even can be found) will not keep the product line. You’re more likely to find yourself deputy product manager Websphere Studio than Delphi advocate.
At most I expect some components and individual technologies to be integrated into the product line of whoever purchases Borland (I consider the dev.tools to BE Borland, the ALM line is Inprise, all hype and a dead end).
I am now glad I didn’t preorder Delphi 2006. Saves me a few hundred Euro invested in another dead technology.
And that’s really hard to say for someone who’s used Borland products consistently since Turbo Pascal 4.
Considering Delphi: Why not making core parts of it open source and merging it with Lazarus? It could take the same way as StarOffice did with OpenOffice!
Good bye,JBuilder!
please keep Borland brand associated with the IDEs and choose a new brand for ALM instead of the contrary!!!
Borland name is history. Borland name is IDE!!!
Good luck.
Salvatore
Wow…I’m floored. I’ve been using Borland’s compilers since the mid 80’s when I was compiling while running off of a floppy. I’ve had to use several versions if MS Compilers and have always loved when I could come back to using offerings from Borland. Why is it that Borland/Inprise can’t see the gem that they have? It seems that they want to be bigger than they are capable of. If they had the excitement, drive, and focus that was present when the earlier compilers were developed, they would still dominate the IDE market today.
I predict that after BDS is bought and rebranded, that it will still outlive Borland’s new ALM company.
A note to Borland…You already have the brass ring, but you’re giving it away now, and you won’t get another one! When your hindsight finally kicks in, I believe it’s gonna sting pretty bad!
What Michael Kemper said…
Who uses ALM? When you say "Borland" people think "IDE" not ALM.
Just don’t call the new company Inprise! That still has to be the dumbest move Borland ever made. OK, buying DBase is a close 2nd.
This is a sad day in developer news. While I no longer use Borland IDEs in my day to day work, I still remember cutting my teeth on Turbo Pascal and later honing my skills with Delphi. If Borland can’t find the money to continue putting back into IDEs, I wonder what real business value there is for another company. Seems as if IDEs are not a money making proposition. Being squeezed between Eclipse and Visual Studio can’t be a great business position for long term viability.
Whoever buys Delphi, it’s dead. It is sure to be either somebody who wants to kill it in favour of some useless plodding Java never-will-be system, or somebody who is too feeble to be any good for it. You might as well rename it WordPerfect.
I had a big rewrite planned for everything over to Delphi 2006 on .Net, now I don’t know what to do.
I have less than zero interest in ALM hot air.
I’m about to send an email to my partners to tell them Delphi has had it’s human heart harvested while it was still alive, to dump into some pampered animal of a company. We have to move on and find something else, unless somebody there sees sense.
Borland without developer products is like Microsoft without Windows.
Also I want my money back. I paid for a subscription to a given entity, not for a pig in a poke.
I agree with, and have been using Borland products as long as, Mr Kemper. This is a poor move by management with no sense of history and apparently no sense at all.
Borland has made its name on the backs of small shops that refused to be assimilated and "do it the Microsoft way".
And all of us, as we have grown, have always remembered who we brought to the dance.
My entire entire product line is written in Delphi (and I keep it that way, using the last version of Delphi until Microsoft releases a Windows version that finally kills the old girl)
For those projects that require it, we have also licensed BCB and JBuilder.
Do you see the point here, fellas? No one gives two s**ts about ALM except MBA-toting jackasses who are busy outsourcing all their programming resources.
This whole move ranks right up there with trading Babe Ruth to finance a theatre production.
I saw new news from Borland site and I can’t believe. Delphi will dead??? Please, Mr’s Borland use your heads, delphi it’s great.
go delphi !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
aguante delphi !!!!!!!!!!
Are they spinning off a new company? Are they selling to the highest bidder? Will they seek what’s best for the customers/loyal users or for the shareholders? Will the current team stay intact? Do they know what they’re doing?
It’s an example how stupid management can kill excellent product.
??!
555555555
NO IDE, Borland will be dead!
Why,????
As a Delphi Instructor Certified I really got surprised with this announcement. It’s really soon to judge if it’s will be better or not for the IDE products but the announcement itself causes fright because it was released too soon. It seens that’s not defiened yet… a buyer, a new company, a joint-venture…
So, until another more substancial announcement we will get stuck waiting for definitions… and I really don’t think that Caliber will help with that…
What Can I Say?
My Favorite IDE will be historic???
I’m pleased that a decision was finally made. The divested products have a lot of unfulfilled promise, and a focused company could enjoy a lot of success. David, I wish you the best, and hope that the next two decades eclipse the previous two decades… a tall order!
i’m just a simple computer programmer developing custom apps, and maybe i’m also an unfortunate one. it took me years to find the best development tool after the death of clipper. invested time in powerbuilder, ms vb, visual foxpro and even CA-VO but i still longed that capabilities of clipper that is only limited by my imagination till i found delphi. imo no windows dev tools could beat delphi just as clipper in DOS.
With this development (selling delphi), as with clipper (sold by Nantucket to CA) it is apparent that delphi’s death is becoming nearer. If she’s gonna die, i will bury my career along with her. It’s a waste but i feel i could no longer compete in this field without the tool i am comfortable working with. adios delphi!
for Borland, learn from your mistake while there’s still customers (mostly enterprise and loyal developers) who are willing to support your tools.
???????DELPHI?????,???…….
???????DELPHI?????,???…….
** snip from Tod Nielsen Shareholder letter **
In support of this strategy we have announced we are acquiring Segue Software, a company focused on Software Quality Optimization. Segue has a very strong reputation in the market for delivering best-in-class solutions
** End snip **
It could also be that the product blow new life in the new owner (Segue Software) Nothing is eternal, allways be prepared for ‘death’
As a Delphi Instructor Certified I really got surprised with this announcement. It’s really soon to judge if it’s will be better or not for the IDE products but the announcement itself causes fright because it was released too soon. It seens that’s not defiened yet… a buyer, a new company, a joint-venture…
So, until another more substancial announcement we will get stuck waiting for definitions… and I really don’t think that Caliber will help with that…
Microsoft wouldn’t kill Delphi as they don’t care what tool you develop in as long as its for their OS, and while they would be happy to buy Delphi and would no doubt punch a ton of money into it, there would likely be some ‘legal’ matters to attend to, which could be a stopper for them. Now Microsoft already owns a chunk of Borland (non-voting shares if I remember correctly), so it might be easier/cheaper for them to purchase the IDE group then one might think.
So if the IDE side is sold off, do all the IDE patents and such go with them?
Good luck Borland as I think you are selling off the wrong part of the company.
I LOVE DELPHI!I doesn’t give up it for ever!!!!!!!!
please answer me what can we do??
For 11 years (as of 27th February 2006) I have been fighting what has, at times, been an uphill battle in educating my managers, unravelling their preconceptions about "toy" IDE development tools and showing, through millions of line of code, the breadth and depth of Delphi’s capabilities - rock-solid Oracle front-ends, multi-tier, load-balanced architectures with fail-over, web application frameworks that let us build sites in days…
This announcement feels like a kick in the teeth then, for all my hard work.
I have also heard that the acquisition of Segue "fills a gap in Borland’s lifecycle offerings" - well pardon me, but doesn’t the divestment of all your development tools leave a rather large abyss in those offerings? How is Borland to support the software development lifecycle without a tool capable of actually developing software?
Perhaps the rationale here, is that without their 350,000 loyal users/fans they can offer something to the 1 million Visual Studio users? If you can’t beat them, join them?
Are Borland’s management incapable of managing further development of Delphi, JBuilder, et al (not to mention their C# offering which puts Microsoft to shame if you look at the comparative resources used to develop it) at the same time as making their ALM offerings available to other development tool environments? By all means, spin off the tools business to new management, but keep it in the ALM family!
What message does this send to software managers? "We can’t make a success of our own core products, but, fingers crossed, someone else might?"… Why would my manager buy another copy of Delphi to add to the 30+ licences we already hold, or train more of our guys to use it? I’d certainly be a fool to recommend that to him right now.
And I’m sorry Borland, but now you’ve pulled the rug from under my development career, do you think I’m going to help you sell your ALM tools in my organisation?
I think that history will show this as a Really Big Mistake - you might be trying to reinvent programming as "lifecycle development", Borland, but speaking for my own organisation, if not for the rest of the UK, what we want is a robust development tool which allows us to code faster, more robust apps that integrate well - until we get that, all you wizzy modelling tools and project management gizmos are useless to us.
Borland, Mr Nielson - I don’t think this will move you into the billion dollar software company stakes you crave - if you make a success of it, Microsoft will do it cheaper and with more marketing $$$, and if you don’t, welll… either way it’s Bye Bye Borland.
Simple poll
Would you use Microsoft Delphi (Integrated in VS.net which looks just like D2006)?
My answer is probably no, If Microsoft is the only way, I would probably re-program everything in Visual C# or Visual Basic.
Would you use an open source Delphi, downloaded from http://delphi.sourceforge.net?
Yes!
I have been using interbase before firebird, now I wouldn’t touch interbase, I just use firebird for small databases (the embedded edition is also great), and Oracle for huge databases.
Would you use Delphi if it was a new company (<UNTITLED COMPANY> Delphi)?
Maybe.
p.s. I don’t care about C#Builder, JBuilder, …etc.
I’ve supported management, using Borland products, for 25 years. Today, my customers asked me for a timeline to convert to Oracle! Does this represent good business for Borland to you?
It’s off to my nearby book store for me. I’m adaptable and a fast learner, self taught since I was 7 years old. Just another event in my Menza life.
By the way, my major customer doesn’t care or want ALM products for the over $500 Million business he manages…except the ones developed by me using IDE development tools.
The best tool is dead !!!
With a heavy heart and against my will I have to embrace VS now
Bye bye Delphi. It was nice knowing you for 20+ years.
RIP
from Canada
David,
A sell off or a new start? If its a new start do you need any help setting up a NewCo, working out a business plan, and getting some investment? Been there done that
Regards
Paul
Oh, and how much for InterBase, I might be interested.
Paul
The main problem with this company, I mean Borland, is that they realy don’t know how to do business. They need to learn more about it, even learning from Ms and see how business can be handled. Borland disapointed me. I’m praparing for migration to VS.
Here is a thought…if you think about it…it’s not unconceivable….
It’s no secret of Google’s aspirations to own the Enterprise.
http://www.google.com/enterprise/
Borland shops the IDE business to Google and Google buys.
(oh, replace the word Google, with the word Sun, and use the same argument).
So, what does Google IMMEDIATELY receive?
(1) Well, DavidI of course…*grin*. Seriously, DavidI is a rock star with WORLD WIDE contacts of developers. Wide and deep talented group of people.
This is without a doubt a line item asset when selling IDE business. Google provides DavidI with a talking points list…DavidI has 100,000’s of Google devotees/ developers that sign up for battle….
(2) Google gets a platform agnostic HIGHLY DEVOTED group of developers. You talk JBuilder and you talk Delphi (C++, C#, .NET) and you have 90% of the base wrapped up into one…..you then talk Interbase..the list goes on…
(3) Google then has entry points into Fortune 500 to follow up on JBuilder/Delphi business..;-)..and then of course give the "let me talk to you about the other products in my Google bag….ever heard of the Google Appliance…ever heard about….*insert Google Product here*…..
(4) Google maintains Awesome relationship with Borland ALM product core. Borland ALM invites Google into Sales conversations and vice versa.
(5) Borland hires MSFT…Bill Gates right hand man..who knows MSFT Achilles points……oh wait, this already happened….
Call it a dream, call it a fantasy….however, who out there would not want to sign up to help Google in Grudge match, Round 1, vs. MSFT?
The Borland of old, when it first tried to take on MSFT, is back!!!
This time, Borland has jaws like a LION……
A naive fantasy? Maybe…Unrealistic? Maybe…..stranger things have happed in the world of Software…..
i cry
why,what do I DO,i am crying.
Hm, btw it seems senior management is reading these blogs. I elaborately responded to one several months ago asking for focus. This is exactly the move I was refering to. Sound business. But don’t call an ALM business Borland. It might have been wiser to call the ALM branch Inprise
"Borland shops the IDE business to Google and Google buys. "
In that case I’ll dump Delphi immediately and anything else to do with Borland.
I want nothing to do with Google and their plans for world domination through tracking and tracing everyone at all times.
And be assured that every line of code you compile will get sent to Google immediately to "improve your profile"…
crying…
The best IDE only belongs to Borland!
no…
The best IDE only belongs to IDE Team, but not the Borland!
Who will/can be the buyer? There would be no one…
Adios Borland Delphi!
Good bye Borland Delphi!
LONG LIVE PASCAL…
Announcing "we want to sell.." is a very bad decision, a very big management mistake… What is the salary of the CEO please ? …
I know a few homeless in the street that can give better direction to a company !
What a disaster for Delphi, even if it will survive, how much customers will choose VS.NET is the next monthes ? It was hard to keep our Borland customers since VS 2005 and D2006 (still in framework 1.1..)? But now ? Selling Delphi is not a disaster in itself, it is the way Borland is communicating on this big change that is a disaster.
Finally, founding a new company with another CEO can’t be worse…
i will not study delphi any more , this bad news makes my enthusiation cool immediately,i don’t want to see that one day when i learned delphi well and then delphi vanished , maybe i should embrace eclipse .
who can give me some advices.
god bless every programmer….
2 bad.
I like Delphi. It can’t be dead! It’s the most simple tool to make native codes! No more easier tool to make native codes! vc is hard to use, and .Net doesn’t make native codes!
Delphi is dead.. Long live Delphi!
I think that Borland has done a terrible job of marketing delphi. It is clearly superior to VB and faster thatn C++ for development yet it has a piddling market share.
One would at least hope that it Delphi is dropped buy Borland or a buyer, they would open source it.
Yeni hedeflerinde Borland’a basarilar dilerim.
My only concern is Delphi. The other products in the list are not worth even mentioning, Forget about the buyer Borland should really pay some one to get them off.
The decision to sell Delphi will affect in a most horrible way to the product development companies which are using Delphi as a tool from at last 5-6 years. Most of them are having Delphi source in multiple of hundred thousand lines and some of them are having source in millions of lines.
It takes lot of consideration to choose a language to develop a product. Before 5-10 years when the product development had started Delphi was certainly the best
Choice and they had made the right decision. Delphi has being giving them results in multiples of their expectations and thus number of developers become Delphi lovers. Lot of time those companies have faced clients asking why have you used Delphi? And they have tough time explaining them however they are able to convince the client because the magic of Delphi was really working.
But… Most of these companies have not upgraded from the last stable version (according to them) of Delphi and most cases it is Delphi 5 or Delphi 6. This indicates that Hardcore Delphi lovers (Companies/Developers) started loosing confidence in Delphi. They thought there is nothing in new versions Delphi worth upgrading.
Thus Delphi is not doing any business for Borland compare to it was doing in those magical days. Remember Delphi was doing very well even though it was priced too high. (No one has doubts if it had priced fairly it would have done much better.) Thus it is not only price which stopping Companies to upgrade. The bottom line is there is nothing worth upgrading. What difference will it make if one upgrades a Win32 product from Delphi 6 to Delphi 9?… Nothing! What new things you will get in Delphi 9 is support for .Net 1.0 and that too when VS2005 is out with 2.0.
The power and magic of Delphi is in availability of massive 3rd party components. Delphi application can’t survive without them. Now most of much loved third party components have migrated to .Net and their components are written in C# (not in Delphi for .Net!) The components writes can, and have to see the future much before product development companies. They are keeping pace with MS they are ready for DotNet 2.0 and doing gr8 business. How long will they support VCL for win32? Do Delphi applications depend on them?
When one says he loves Delphi he never means to say he loves Borland! He loved Delphi means he loved the community which supported Delphi the third party Components which makes his life easier which and always given him upper hand in competitions.
Now forget about Borland Selling It! Do you have the same community? How many Delphi sites which you used to visit daily are still up? How many Delphi websites are last updated this year? Can you name a new Delphi website? Can you name a single third party component suite written in Delphi for .Net? The fortune of Delphi will not change. it hardly matters who buys Delphi. I has lost the Support. And it is a fact that the support is moved to C#. for MS it took more than 6 years to shift Delphi developers to MS and that too only with the help of father of Delphi… Andres! I don’t believe that Delphi will have something it to gain the support again. Delphi has lost its father as well as the supporters.
Now clients may be just asking you … Do you support dot Net? Even if you are not you can sell your product just because of the futures you have and your competitors don’t. But what about the futures your competitors have in addition just because he is migrated to dot net and you don’t… the day is not far when clients will insist the application must be in Dot net. Are you ready for that? Your current application written in Delphi may work under Windows 32 for another 5 years. But day by day it will become more difficult to sell the sinking ship.
For product developers now it will be tougher to explain why they have used Delphi. Where the product will be after 2 years? Still their user interface is the best? (Considering the latest version of you VCL components look much better in .Net and have lot of enhancements). And there are many questions with unknown the answer.
No clear future. No clear goal. No clear vision. and still expected to be in business.
How easy will it be to find and hire Delphi developer after 2 years and if yes at what cost?
If you want to be successful in Microsoft World you have to follow Microsoft. Do what Microsoft want you to do. That’s what Delphi Component writers are doing and they are Successful and still in business. Now today you can see the difference between Component writers who have migrated and who have not migrated to Dot net. Who is in business and doing better? Who have to close their business?
My advice is to Migrate to Dot Net 2.0 using C#. Because it will take a year or more to have a stable version (depends on no of lines you have in your existing source) By that time DotNet 1.0 will be legacy. Delphi components are available for dot net 2.0. Existing Delphi Developers with knowledge of Dot Net will be best people to do this job.
If you don’t start migrating today tomorrow will it be too late. If today you don’t have the budget to migrate, tomorrow you might not have the income.
Begin
Initialize
Start Migrating Now.
Finalize
You will be in business after 2 years.
End.
Comments are welcome!
Delphi and C# Lover (You always have the freedom to love more than once!)
I love and want to use Delphi !
What to say more ? CIO of Borland - find the decision to keep Delphi and other IDE products live. Dont simply sell them without thinking about your friends ( me and many many people around the world ) ! Of you sell Delphi the buyer must be responsible for both - Delphi and his friends !
Best wishes
I like variability. Even though I never bothered with Delphi, I respect it and I would like to see it around in the computing world. There might be many worthy IDEs for Java costing 10000000 times cheaper than JBuilder but I would feel sorry if the latter gets EOLed. And that’s it what it could happen if Borland sell themselves to the wrong company.
I am a chinese,and I like variability. I am sorry to hear it.???Borland??????,????,????????????????????
I’m shocked. It’s not april first already is it?
I’ve been a faithful borlander since Turbo Pascal 5.5, and whatever the new company name, it will be hard to believe that Delphi, et al, would even be spun off if they were highly profitable. The opposite of highly profitable would be "Dead".
If IBM, Oracle, or Computer Associates buys the Borland IDE tools segment, then I predict a long slow death for De