We are a couple of months into Code Gear, I do not see anything happening… I do not see a revamped site or company which can help me as a developer. I was pessimistic at hearing the news of the Borland Spin-off and I am still so.

Lets take the “Education” page (on the site) as an example…It seems to me that I, as a C++ Builder developer, am out of the picture…C++ Builder? Where is it? Should I change to JBuilder of DELPHI? Or migrate to MS-VC?

I send an email to CodeGear (from the contact’s page) on <<May 19, 2007 4:26 PM>> (local time of course), and never heard of you again… Is this sign of improvement? I feel minimally status-quo situation here or even that things are getting worse.

Frustration is a very weak word to use here. I cannot get a decent answer on a basic question (the e-mail question above) on the IDE I bought from you.

At MS I could get a pile of education options on VC++, I could get books by the dozen (a year), instruction videos, etc. The only reason I am still here is because of the consistency of C++ coding standards. But how much is that worth? Lately it seems this idealistic approach does not serve me well as a developer.

I hope to get some reaccion from Borland, Devco, Code Gear or whomever is in charge here.

Thank you,

Armando

I have just downloaded some of your Turbo Explorer products and found that these are pretty much the thing I have been looking for, better still they do remind me of the good ol days. And these are less buggy and bloated than Microsoft’s Visual Studio Express line. I think I will be investing in a copy of Turbo Professional products at some time.

Excellent stuff, thanks

Sophie

Well I was very surprised a couple of months ago with the announcement of the sale/spin off. I appreciate you taking the effort to give us outsiders a look at what is going on inside.

I still fondly remember your first "Sip from a Firehose" ‘blog’ posting 10 years ago, which I read upon my return from the conference in London. Ever since then events like this that are overwhelming remind me of that. I have been sipping and tasting this divesture (firehose) and I am certain that if you get the buyer you desire that DevCo will succeed long term. Good luck and keep giving us insight!

–ERIC

Thanks for that information, this is what I was hoping to read. As I say it is the consistency of coding standards, give or take platform differences that has kept me using Borland products to date.

There is also the tiny matter of cost. And open source support. (Aha that little term Open source) The one other thing I have liked about Borland in the past has been the release of "personal" and "open" editions, (I do more open source than commercial coding) And also lower prices a few years ago. While the "P and O" versions have thankfully been made available, (Though tending more often to be on blink or you will miss it CDs) the price of the main versions seem to have gone up. Paying for a new version every year is a bit of an overhead, especially when most of my work is acedemic and open source.

I would like to know what Devco will be doing on that front.

Also if you are also doing versions of Delphi that cover all the experimental kneejerk "platforms" microsft keep re-inventing, Thats good. I know when Microsft inflicted the XP theme "engine" on us all your developers had a bit of a runaround making Delphi 7 and 8 "XP ready". Meaning I know that you are aware how those of us who are stuck with the capricious specification changes of M$ to content with feel.

Outside MS "Windowsnetvistahastalavista" is Kylix going to be revived? As I am migrating more to Linux these days a new Kylix would be handy.

Sophie

If you look at our update/release schedule over the years (including currently) you’ll see that we are on a once a year (or so) release cycle with updates and hot fixes during the year.

You should also see that for the IDE products we put a lot of non-ALM capability into our products. We have customers who just code and other customers who work in teams. Providing additional capability (you don’t have to use it) for modeling, change management, etc is not the end all and be all for the developer products.

Out goal is to continue to provide compatible support (as much as technically possible) between our Delphi Win 16, Delphi Win32, Delphi .NET, Delphi Vista, Delphi .NET Compact Framework, and Delphi Win 64. The roadmap spells this out - language and VCL compatibility across the platforms (of course there are a few differences here and there - like 16-32-64 bit and Windows API differences here and there).

For JBuilder we also support multiple JDK versions and have followed the Sun Java language standard and Java Community Process since the beginning of Java.

Bit of a concern about words like "Lifecycle" I have this horrible mental image of the following:

"Have you upgraded to DelphiStudio 2006 yet, (Cost $1000,000)….Have you upgraded to DelphiStudio November 2006 total revamp, no legacy coding, (Cost $1000,000)….Have you Upgraded to Delphi Studio November and three weeks, No you cannot compile November 2006 source code in this but you need it because others have brought it. (Cost $1000,000). Are You Ready for the all new, totally different DelphiStudio Christmas 2006 edition, all the others are obsolete"….)

I mean this is Microsoft’s favourite trick and of late I have noticed Borland peddling newer versions of Delphi. All being released more often. With "Lifecycle management" being held up as a virtue. Please reassure me that concepts like *Consistent standards* and *sane upgrade cycle* will remain.

The primary reason I have stuck with borland for so many years was the fact that generally coding standards were consistent (Unlike Microsoft with the VB6 to VB dot net scam).

Please tell me that "Devco" wont become "Are you dready no buy buy buyco" If you know what I mean.

Sophie

I really want to believe your words, because that will be good news to us Delphi Developers.

I really think you should believe what you say, because if it´s not true, you –and your 20+ years at Borland- will be left in the dust like the rest of us…

Better or worse ?

Only time –not you- will tell.

What information can I give you to convince you? I’ll answer most of your questions in this message. If I still haven’t assured you, send me more questions that I can answer that will convince you. This is good!

> The best and most effective way to win a war is to divide and conquer.

Okay. I agree with you. We are dividing Borland into two separate companies to conquer distinctly different competitors. So this sounds like we are doing the right thing, and Tod Nielsen has repeatedly agreed with you. Focus, Focus, Focus.

>Some time ago, Borland tried to merge with Corel. Whatever the wrong things were that prevented the merger; I still think they were the perfect match.

The Corel "distraction" was no where near a perfect match. That failed deal was simply a complete shutdown strategy, end of game. If you want to do a detailed analysis of that deal, you need to go much deeper than the surface (on both sides).

>See what Corel is doing (against all odds = MS) with the WordPerfect suit. It’s gaining! Slowly, but surely.

Corel gaining on MS Office? Open Office has a better chance than anyone, IMHO. But I’ll leave non-developer product competitive analysis to people who focus on that area. My focus is developers.

> The new business Borland wants to pursue, cannot be pursued by using another name or new investor? What is the persistence of removing the “developer business” from the name “Borland”? That is a cardinal question.

Good question - here are some thoughts: Borland made the decision to keep the name, not us "DevCo" staff members. Reasons for Borland to keep the Borland brand and name? It costs a lot of money to change a corporation name (millions of dollars were spent to change the name from Borland to Inprise back in the late 90’s). Legal entities, stock symbols, stationary, etc all cost a lot of money that could be spent on other things. Brand name recognition is also important. For the "DevCo" products the brand names that are important are Delphi, C++Builder, JBuilder, C#Builder, InterBase, JDataStore, Turbo C++, Turbo Pascal, etc. None of those have the Borland name in them. Most developers are Delphi, C++, C#, Java developers. Very few that I’ve talked to say they are a Borland Delphi developer.

> Then why venture into those new businesses?

We have been venturing into new businesses since the beginning of our company back in 1983. What started with two products - Word Index and Menu Master (both non-developer products) - then grew to include Sidekick and Turbo Pascal (one end user product, one developer product), then we added Superkey (end user), Reflex (end user), Quattro (end user), Sidekick for the Mac, Turbo C(developer), Paradox (end user, database developer), and so on. On the developer products side, we integrated with and used version control systems, modeling, and other parts of the development lifecycle.

Do you remember a product named Borland C++ and Design Tools? This was an integration of Borland C++ and Together C++. The product was introduced back in 1995, long before we acquired TogetherSoft. StarBase with their StarTeam product was a Technology Partner for more than 10 years before we acquired them. Seque was a technology partner for more than 12 years before we bought them.

So, for many years we have extended our application development reach beyond just editing, compiling, and debugging.

> Is it more profitable?

There is high growth potential in the non-coding areas of the application development lifecycle / process. Both have growth potentials - Tod has said that Borland can’t afford to invest in both. The choice was made. Borland invests in the non-coding area. "DevCo" gets investors to build our company and we can put the profits back into our developer business (as a private company). Focus.

Some time ago, Borland tried to merge with Corel. Whatever the wrong things were that prevented the merger; I still think they were the perfect match. Sure, I am no insider or a business know-it-all. Nevertheless, by splitting I see proof, of weakness. I bring this up again. See what Corel is doing (against all odds = MS) with the WordPerfect suit. It’s gaining! Slowly, but surely. Against MS, it’s against the odds. It baffles me that Borland is retreating (if you don’t think its retreat, explain to me how else to define it).

The new business Borland wants to pursue, cannot be pursued by using another name or new investor? What is the persistence of removing the “developer business” from the name “Borland”? What is the insistence? Please. Tell me that. That is a cardinal question. Isn’t the one a disadvantage to the other? It cannot be answered with “because we cannot invest in both”. Then why venture into those new businesses? Is it more profitable? Please, straight forward….

We care about all of our loyal community members, big and small, local and global. You will not suffer - we are here, we are working, we care about you, and we are building the products you need and want.

> As Einstein once said, "The important thing is never to stop questioning."

I keep questioning things all the time, in life and here at Borland. Have been questioning and answering/pushing for 20+ years. It is great to have all of our customers (not just the luminaries) questioning and also pushing us forward too. I’ve always said that if none of our customers care about what we are doing, if the engineers lost the drive to push the envelope, then we’d be DONE. None of this is happening. Everyone cares, everyone is pushing, everyone is questioning. Keep it up. We’re here, and we’ll be here for years to come.

> But I do lay the blame of disappointment on Borland, because it has retreated and won’t even say it straight foreward.

"DevCo" is not retreating. We are moving forward. We are keeping you informed on what is happening with our new company that will be formed. We are operating as a division inside of Borland until that day comes.

>I hope, along with all the other Borland users out there who are unhappy with the "spin-off", that we can inspire some vision, imagination or whatever feeling which could help, to the people at Borland. I hope they stop now and play the game (and do not leave the field).

"DevCo" is not leaving the playing field. We are inviting all of our customers to continue playing with us, helping us, giving us your wish lists, needs, wants, bugs, etc. Use Quality Central, blog comments and email to get to us.

> The Logical step now (for me as a developer), is to start thinking about migrating my apps to VS, because at least I am sure that they will be around for some time to come. Uncertainty is the only certainty there is the way things are going with Borlands developers tool (especially C++ Builder which I use).

Your investment in our products is secure. "DevCo" will be a separate company and our products will go on. Yes, the only unknown is who the investor will be. I am part of the leadership team that will present to investors. We will help pick the right investor to make sure you are happy, supported, and that our company thrives. It has always been your choice for which development tools you want to use, this is a free market. If you’re successful using our products before and today, then you will be successful in the future too. That is my promise.