I have just returned from our developer conference in Tokyo Japan. Thank you to all of the great community members who spent last Friday with us. During the opening keynote and in press meetings I presented some of the reasons for the spin-off (”DevCo”) of the developer and database products. We are moving forward with the preparations for presentations to potential investors. We are also still at work as Borland employees. Here are some additional thoughts about the spin-off.
Borland and “DevCo” - Different Business Models and Go To Market Strategies
| Borland | "DevCo" |
|---|---|
| Consultative Sale | Channel/Direct Sale |
| Field Sales/Service force | Channel or eShop partners |
| Corporate marketing | Direct marketing |
| Multi-Year engagement | Year-by-year product/upgrade |
| Focus on overall process | Focus on code |
| IDE agnostic | ALM agnostic |
| Software organizations | Developers |
Why create a separate developer focused company? Our IDE customers will get more attention and investment. "DevCo" will have employees dedicated to our developer customer’s success. You will see focused development on developer and database products. We will be able to increase our marketing efforts. "DevCo" can extend the reach of it’s products beyond their integration with Borland ALM. With focused attention and increased resources, "DevCo" will be help spur new innovation in developer tools market.
We are thankful for the many great comments we have received from our loyal community members and partners.
- “Now a great technology, a great community, and a DelphiNewCo Inc. are ready to enter a New Delphi Era. “ - Marco Cantu
- “…personally think this is the best thing to happen to Delphi since it was released eleven years ago today ” - Nick Hodges
- “My loyalty will be to the new company; to Delphi and the other IDE products.” – Bob Swart
- “Delphi and the other Borland IDE’s will now be flying free. And we’ll all get through this turbulence. Just fasten your seatbelt, order the adult beverage of your choice, take a deep breath, relax, and say to yourself calmly - the plane will not fall out of the sky, the plane will not fall out of the sky…“ – Randy Magruder
- "There’s a lot of room for new, highly integrated IDE products. Delphiware Corp could own the AJAX market with the right product. Life is about making code happen. Let’s hope that Delphi’s new masters (whoever they turn out to be) have that motto carved on the doorframe." - Jeff Duntemann
We are working for you. We are still Borland employees (for now). R&D work continues on all products. Developer support is still taking calls. We are still traveling and talking with our customers. We appreciate all of the business and support you have given us. Let us know how we can continue to deserve your business.
{ 46 } Comments
Mr. Intersimone,
This newco thing appear to be interesting, but I remember the "Inprise" thing some time ago.
Just when we got Together inside Delphi, with full UML support built-in!!!
Since the trouble which made FirebirdSQL a reality instead of a open-source Interbase, I have to confess, my faith in Borland managers decayed.
I’m a loyal Delphi fan. Used it since dec 1997. I learned strucutured programming with Turbo Pascal. I learned C++ in Turbo C++.
I’m worried: there are fewer Delphi authors, most advanced books are out-of-print, although there still Marco Cantù and a few.
Many people are saying that good paying Delphi jobs are no more.
I confess, too, that I tried Java with Eclipse. But Eclipse is clumsy and a great headache to configure.
Could the newco change this dark figure, making Delphi sit at the place it deserves as the coolest IDE/RAD tool for Windows - showing how crappy are MS stuff?
Or is will be another OS/2 (a technically superior product smashed by the incompetence of their vendor and MS cheat OEM-contracts)?
However, I want to believe…
You should believe. We are putting together the business and investment plan. The teams are here working for you. Delphi is getting the attention it deserves.
I can’t see anything wrong with a spin-off. At least car industry has some spin-off in last few years:
Rolls-Royce Corporation vs. Rolls Royce car business (BMW)
Saab Corporation vs. Saab cars business (GM)
Borland vs. DevCo spin-off is not so exotic!
I like the comparison you wrote between Borland & DevCo. It clearly shows how different are markets & targets of both companies and why spin-off can help DevCo to focus on IDE market.
My worries is not you, or the other developers. I think technical team at Borland is competent as, huhhh, the IBM’s most hardcore developers. And MUCH superior to all MS thingies.
My worries is about the people with suits and ties. Since the event I mentioned earlier, I didn’t trust much these guys at Borland.
People are still scared. I’m reading the press - but only when I see Delphi being managed as a priority and passion it deserves, I’ll be calm.
As another developer said on a discussion list: I don’t know if I cry or laugh..
David:
After 20 plus years at Borland and twisting and turning with the wimps at Borland management, which curiously includes you!
Now, you guys are being spunned off? I can’t seem any reasons why you can be doing a better job. Isn’t 20 years a good measure of success or failure. Many companies have much less opportunities.
And what is the time period if no buyers want to buy NewCo? We have not heard what will happen if that dateline expires. Can you tell us?
Delphi is great but these stinking managers always screw up!
Interested Observer
Very strange - you’re making statements about the unknown as if you expect it will happen that way. Who knows what the new buyer of Delphi et al will bring (assuming a buyer is found)?
Probably I am not saying anything new but the problem now is the time.
The situation must be defined in a very short time otherwise a lot of users will migrate to some other tools.
In my company we use, happily, Delphi to develop our applications since ‘97 and, obviously, we do not have any interest to change it but there are already some customers asking us for our ideas for the future. We provide some of them also with the source codes and they are already worried they will have to maintain the application with a dead product.
Now they are worried, then they will ask us to change, then they will not buy from us if we do not change. And we will have to.
Please, be fast!
Oh, my…
Seems nobody will believe until the DevCo arrives and show what is up to.
For me, is the symptom of distrust conquered for the s* Borland Corporate (not the hard working guys that make Delphi and other products) made in the past.
I’m with Paolo: BE FAST!
We are still here working on Delphi. Our support team is still answering questions and reporting issues. Everything is moving forward. There is no dead product here. The engineers are here and working. Customers who use Delphi can keep using Delphi for years to come.
Pete said "Very strange - you’re making statements about the unknown as if you expect it will happen that way."
I am on the leadership team putting the materials and presentation together to give to investors. I will be in the investor meetings. I am part of the team running the business. I’ve been here helping our customers for 20+ years. I feel very comfortable talking about the spin-off because I am working on it.
You said everything:
We are *STILL* here working on Delphi.
If the board doesn`t find a buyer? If this buyer want Delphi to just kill him or be just incompetent (like Computer Associates, which sucessfully manages every good tool that they buy to go to the land of forgotten software)…?
All these things can change in the light of a second!! Do you remember how Borland wanted to kill Interbase in the middle of the night and that way betraying IB customer base? If Karwin et al doesn’t quit, no one would suspect… They doesn’t said nothing but their demission told for them. And we wouldn’t have either Interbase nor Firebird if they doesn’t made this.
I knew of some which would lose their job and reputation because of this - just because of their reputation was the sale made, IB was a EXTREMELY HARD sale and sell just because of people that believed in the product. And many bought just because of this and the price, much less than MSSQL.
And you ask ‘why people don’t trust Borland managers’? Is Borland which need to prove the loyalty to their customers with facts and acts. Not words. We believe in you, IDE developers at Borland, but not in your bosses.
And believe in other thing: make a mess of this spin-off, and your IDE customers will make your sells of ALM be worse than ever before.
I too have been a Delphi user for more years then fingers and toes. My problem has been the lack of cross platform with Delphi. Because of this I’ve needed to move to C++, so now my code (the kernel of which was built using turboc) runs on 5 different OS’s. (DOS,Windows,Linux,Palm, and mobile). There is no way I could do this with Delphi even though on windows Delphi is the better product. (I use Delphi for interface only on Windows).
So all this talk about giving Delphi the respect it deserves is great and all, but I would rather the resources were put into CBuilder, to support multiple platforms, and make a more generic interface then VCL. (I look at projects like the Fox-toolkit or Ultimate++ and realize these one man shows can make cross platform, then look at QT and realize that if Borland supported that, then they could as well).
In anycase, I wish you all the best, and wait with bated breath for the next morsel of information about "THE SAGA OF BORLAND".
I am really glad that Delphi is being spun off from Borland.
I happen to attend the launch event of Tempo in Bangalore & it was evident Borland was just fishing.
The only impressive presenation was from Gartner & the Borland speaker & the person giving the demo were listless.They also could not answer any of the queries convincingly.
It is really a miracle that Delphi survived all these years under Borland way of doing things.
I am really waiting for the day when Delphi is free & free to go(any where)!
Wow, most of the replies to these blog entries are really emotional. nIt shows people have a strong personal attachment to the tools people use to build their products. I must admit I’m anxious about the new developments too, but we all know that Borland’s IDE products have not received the attention that they deserve in the past years, so I see this as an oppportunity first and foremost. It should have happened earlier, but I’m glad it is happening. At the other hand, the new company might have to compete against Microsoft which can win developers by providing their tools at a loss, which the combined Borland could have done, but a sole entity might not. This is not a minor challenge.
I won’t pretend that I know the best way ahead, but I will be eagerly awaiting the new proposition. It would be extremely exciting to have the products marketed to developers in a direct fashion, and get a strong modern community initiative supported by the company. Open source projects have demonstrated it is not necessary to have a very large team or contributor base; good architecture and stimulation can make the community much more efficient. A good example is Sun who seems to have gained momentum with their OpenSolaris initiative.
As a user of C++Builder and Visual Studio (for Win32 and .NET) over the past years, I still must say I still prefer C++Builder. As successful as .NET may be, for various reasons I feel it is inappropriate for medium to large desktop applications. MS agrees with me, as most its own new GUI products are still based on its Win32 frameworks and not .NET. I’ve tried and made some sizable .NET applications using stuff like DirectX, COM interop etc., but after all those years, it still seems I need to use MFC/ATL/WTL to get a normal looking, fast running app, DirectX support for .NET is incomplete, and I still find it horrible to deal with those frameworks! But I can still RAD my way in C++Builder just like I would do with .NET, have a fast app in a few hours and package it in another hour. But with the C++Builder classes, I have better speed, normal looking native widgets, et cetera. I’m sure Delphi users feel the same.
So the product line still has large potential and it seems a good vehicle for further development. Everything changes, but I hope this IDE will remain available! Cheers to the team!
Big load of oxymorons here:
"We are working for you." Oh, you are?
"We are still Borland employees (for now)." Violates first statement "we are working for you"
"R&D work continues on all products." Oh really? Kylix too, eh??????
"Developer support is still taking calls." Oh really? Last time I called, it was automated phone system in endless loop leading to black hole.
"We are still travelling and talking with our customers." Traveling? Perhaps.
"We appreciate all of the business and support you have given us." No, David, you (meaning Borland) don’t. Appreciation in verbiage alone.
"Let us know how we can continue to deserve your business." David, I mean you (personally) no disrespect. You want to know how YOU (personally) would deserve my business? By abandoning Borland ship and orchestrating "hostile" takeover of Borland. David, honestly, what comes out of your mouth depends on your paycheck. Why should we "listen" to you? You’re working for "them"… not us. You’ll say anything for your next paycheck. You’ll even become evangelical about Delphi continuing on somehow. Rah Rah Rah! See how stupid I look up here! Cheer people! Look how my arms and legs and mouth moves by these puppet strings!
Why should we believe anything from you anymore David?
Why?
totally agree with the above, Why David? why the corporate gibberish? Tell it to us straight, what does this mean for a long standing Delphi user and how does it translate in terms of cost and support for the customer, the end user, that person who buys and uses the future versions of the IDE products?
IRate says - "What does this all mean to long standing Delphi users?" Versions of Delphi for years to come. More money to invest in better Delphi quality, more Win32 capabilities, earlier support for new technologies, revisiting other platforms, better help, more examples, etc.
To answer Perry as well - "What comes out of your mouth depends on your paycheck" -> If it was about my paycheck I wouldn’t have stayed at Borland and focused on developers for the past 20+ years. I would have left for the large bags of cash that were waved in my direction over the years.
David I
Hello David
I can tell you a few things end users like me think would be good.
Lower cost to begin with, the current versions of Delphi are way too expensive.
The developer community pages, keep that, some of us find that invaluable,
More listening to end users on things like the IDE itself (No, not everyone likes the current delphi layout)
Keep the ease of Use Delphi is famous for, it keeps Visual Studio at bay.
the reason you have so many loyal customers going back to the Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ days (And turbo assembler which to me is a godsend) is because Borland have come to represent a much more open minded, reasonable and user friendly culture. In case you havent noticed it MS are trying to mimick this (Badly in my opinion). So it should give some indication as to what your IDEs have come to represent on the market. Over the past two years it has all gone a bit weird quite frankly. "Are you dotnet ready" and "Are you ready for visual studio with a delphi badge" and then "Where is Dotnet mobile support then" (Asks the now bemused end user).
Is your current move going to take the IDE products back to what they were in terms of familiarity and so on (I dont mean reverting the technology, I mean keeping the Culture borland are respected for and products that reflect this)
Sure more examples and so on are nice, but not at some of the recent prices that do not provide upgrade incentives.
I can assure you David that much of the anger and uneasy commentary you have been reading here, is not because the IDE products are bad, quite the opposite, they are valued by a huge user base, who in many cases rely on these products to make a living.
These products are the sort of things investors normally dream of, that one example of design or familiarity that ensures a long standing base of customers.
I can think of many examples of cherished products on the Market, from partular models of cars to particular household goods, something as mundane as "Sellotape" and "Scotch tape" both examples where the brand name becomes the product name.
In the software industry Delphi is there, that ideal product, Pascal is synonymous with Delphi. With borland IDEs in general people more often say "C Builder" and "J Builder" than Visual C++ (the only exception is Visual Basic).
Three synonymous languages to MS’ one. not bad really.
You still have a long running and winning product line there. Dont wreck it, And dont lose the customer base, Keep those points in mind and Delphi will still be on the shelves, selling well. in 30 years time.
I have used borland products since Turbo Pascal on CPM. So for the last 20 years I have been a supporter of Borland products as their IDE was easier to use than anything else on the market. I currently work with Delphi 7,5,3 and C++ builder 3 which shows the length of time which products I develop are expected to be useful for.
I remember industry telling everyone that CASE tools would bring an end to having to write code and all you had to do was define the problem.
All I am interested in is the Delphi or C++ Builder IDE, including the debugger. Any of the other fancy tools are just not used. So package it seperately and at a much lower price.
What you have just announced is making me reconsider which development tools I can rely on for developing new products. I need to know who the new buyer is, and what their intentions are in order to know whether to be excited or start looking at alternative development tools.
I have used Pascal since CPM (in 1984 ? 5) through most of its variants, and finally bought Delphi 2006 because I thought this may be the end of the line for both of us. I have no faith in Borland management, but have found the programs excellent. If only there was someone with vision in the management team.
Since we have to handle between 50-60 components which our Win32-App is using we would be glad if all of the existing problems within the IDE of BDS 2006 are getting fixed as soon as possible. (We have about 30 within QualityCentral registered bugreports including callstacks of BDS-crashes)
All of the cool features are worthless if the IDE is not stable. So we hope - whoever will drive Borland’s IDE Business in the future - will start to consider this kind of ‘enterprise’ situation.
Guys: I wish you the best of the lucks. I don’t buy the idea, but who knows, may be you’re right and I’m could be the wrong one here.
But… just one advice: give "Ranty" Magruder a couple of pills, just in order to calm down him. If Mr. Ranty attacks on other developers and opinions represent the feelings and ideas from DevCo’s people (and I strongly hope it doesn’t)… gosh… you’ll have a hard time, dudes…
The Prophet
– Three synonymous languages to MS’ one. not bad really.
Irate: You forgot C#. It’s way better than Delphi (and I won’t even talk about Java). Did I said better? Uh, I should have said "ahead"… How long it would take Delphi.NET offering same capabilities as C# is already supporting?
While C# has been demonstrating LINQ for a fair time, Delphi still does not implement generics, iterators, nullable types (and lifted operators!), partial classes, type inference (for generic method calls)…
The Prophet
> You forgot C#.
Sorry. C# and Delphi on .NET 1.1 have language parity (we have to, to support .NET 1.1 fully)
> C# has been demonstrating LINQ for a fair time
Linq is demoed but will appear in C# v3.0
> Delphi still does not implement generics, iterators
Delphi gets all of the things you list when we finish our .NET 2.0 support.
Of course Delphi also has Win32 support (C# doesn’t)
> Interbase that are not yet there: full database duplication/failover. And, of course, faster and faster speeds.
The InterBase team is working on version 8.0. They talked about it at DevCon 2005 in SF last November. You can hear and see the recorded panel discussion at
http://bdntv.borland.com/devcon05/1100/1100.html
Changing a name or a company is never good. Borland is a strong brand, and in the past it is tried with the Inprise name and that did not worked either.
I don’t go into the not very usefull battle of "this product is better than the other" that is not a very usefull battle. It reminds me a bit of the "ZX Spectrum vs Commodore 64" or "Amiga vs Atari ST" discussions. A waste of time.
Let’s focus on the fact how we react as a usersgroup, and as a usersgroup we can do 2 things:
1. accept it, and be happy, and don’t complain if it does not work, or
2. don’t accept it and use our power as a usersgroup and threat to deny the product in the future if it is not made under the flag of Borland.
Let’s face it, Delphi from another company than Borland is almost as worse as making a picture of Mohammed.
It Aint Broken - So Dont Fix It…
However I think there is another agenda here.
Im looking very very cloely at MS Studio 2005 … And im wondering if Borland see what I see, REAL COMPETITION … and I guess Borland do not want to see Delphi Die in thier hands!!!
Seriously folks … watch out or be caught out!
Here is what Delphi cant do for me…. A singular frame work for cross development in win32, .net 2.0 and mobile devices …. (mobile devices are no longer toys)
Write once - use in all = MS Studio 2005 … Has anyone else noticed how MS has crept in the back door un-noticed?
> Here is what Delphi cant do for me…. A singular frame work for cross development in win32, .net 2.0 and mobile devices …. (mobile devices are no longer toys)
MS VS 2005 cannot do this in one language. Delphi roadmap precisely show you that we have and are working to put VCL across Win16, Win32, Win64, .NET 1.1, .NET 2.0 and .NET CF.
David - Thank you for taking time out to add to my comment. It is so important that we (the devvies - new word for the Oxford dictionary !!!) are help to feel comfortable with such changes a foot!
There is a framework from Mere Mortals that does exatly this with MS Studio 2005 - right now. Write Once - Use Allways.
I have been developing with Delphi since version 6 and have purchased many components such as Dev Express etc. Not only will the dev Ex compenents run on D200x but also with MS Studio 2005, Again what wories me and should worry you guy’s is that even Dev Express are not concentrating on D200x but MS Studio 2005. Its all for .net and MS not Borland.
OK .. I do want to see Delphi continue - I know it well - I know its faults and how to correct them (mostly!) and I dont want to change to MS …. but MS has its nose in front right now and as said, perhapes Borland does not want a product with a limited shelf life under its wing?
I have subscribed through the last updates from 6 to 2006 … yet I find im still using D7. And for .net … well I might as well consider MS for .net as that is where all the component development is going.
That does not mean I wont upgrade right the way through to the end of Delphi!
> well I might as well consider MS for .net as that is where all the component development is going.
You can use .NET assemblies and components with Delphi for .NET language.
A new company is OK if the promises are met - but it needs to happen soon! I have a copy of Visual Studio Trial sitting on my desk right now. I’d GREATLY prefer to continue with Delphi, but I must move to .NET one way or the other, and if the future of Delphi is in doubt I may have no choice but to go to the dark side. Please get DevCo (hopefully with a better name) up and running ASAP!
> if the future of Delphi is in doubt I may have no choice but to go to the dark side
The future is not in doubt. Tod Nielsen has said so and so have all of us on the leadership team. Delphi is a profitable business and will stay in business for years to come.
I have used Borland products since Turbo Pascal in 1987 and then Turbo/Borland C for all my MSDOS applications. When I first tried a Windows application I used Borland C++ and C Builder, then was introduced to Delphi 4 pro and I still use that. My programs are relatively small and low-level, so I don’t know if I would benefit from upgrading to Delphi2006.
I think the upgrade cost of about $400 is quite reasonable if the product will be used for commercial apps, and otherwise the academic versions are a great deal.
I have always liked Borland for their "no nonsense" licensing. Recently, I have been frustrated with expiring licenses and hard-sell maintenance contracts with my dongle-protected PADS schematic and PCB design software (see listserver.pads.com for details). This new licensing scheme (scam?) started when PADS was bought by Mentor Graphics. They said they had the only 5 star (*****) support in the business but now it seems it has become $$$$$. I hope the new spinoff will be able to keep the Delphi products reasonably available and supported for the small time user as well as the major developers.
I haven’t been in the market for some time but is there any possibility of an inexpensive personal license? I have been asked at a couple of companies I’ve worked for to select the programming tools. I recommend what I use at home. This may seem backwards but I am usually expected to start producing quickly, not spend time learning a new environment.
I’m disapointed. I started programming PCs with Turbo Pascal 1.0, which cost $36 at egghead software and came on a single 5" floppy — stuck into the kovar manual. Microsoft was just as useless then. I do use Visual Studio 2003 now, and Delphi 7 & 8 also, I was planning on getting aboard with "Borland" Developer Studio, but fortunately couldn’t find it on "their" website. I guess I’ll stick with good old Microsoft a while longer, at least they’ll be in business as long as Windows is. Anyone for Linux? What ever happend to make Anders sell out? I believe that Turbo Pascal 1.0 would still sell today.
MS has once more won the economic battle, because too many companies have just given up. The reason? Its more economically viable to just give up a battle against MS than to "go for it!". That is the reality of what is happening to Borland today.
I noticed at the top of this page, that Mr.David Intersimone, lists some people (among others VCL-gurus, Jeff Duntemann and Bob Swart) who are quoted as staying loyal or giving their blessings to the sip-off plans. That’s nice…But I would suggest to Mr. David I, whom I have much respect for, to take a look at the blogs out there (and on borland’s site and including this page) from the day-to-day BCB/DELPHI users. What ever (the big cahunas like) "Marco Cantu", "Nick Hodges ", "Bob Swart", "Randy Magruder" and "Jeff Duntemann " opinions are, you cannot hide the reality. The little cahunas (the ones who use, and buy Borlands products) are not happy and at the end will suffer the most.
As Einstein once said, "The important thing is never to stop questioning." That important thing is already a "passed by station" for the "spin-off" evangelists and the Big cahunas. The important thing now (for them) is to try to convince us that we should keep on spending more money into buying products on a death sentence. DELPHI, C++ Builder etc. are on a road to a death Chamber, first because of the .NET "revolution" (in the hands of the mighty MS) and now, the "spin-off". The MS people must be having a ball right now and they should, because they know that loyalty is broken when the one who "the loyals" are loyal to, retreats!!!!!
I cannot lay all the blame entirely on Borland. I know its a tough business. From day-one I read about the ".NET revolution" many years ago, I remember saying that this is the end for companies such as Borland. The .NET strategy, is the same kind of strategy MS used against WordPerfect with the OS/Office suit combination (Monopoly!). But I do lay the blame of disappointment on Borland, because it has retreated and won’t even say it straight foreward.
What became of WordPerfect’s good products once WordPerfect was sold off (read: spun-off)? During the last decade, I know the products were being sold, but I just never saw them (anywhere), until Corel took up the battle (after WordPerfect was spun over and over again). At last Corel is doing the battle. Today WordPerfect and friends are a little more in the picture. Maybe we can call it dedication from the Corel side.
I admire Corel for their courage. Maybe that was the source of the failed merger with Borland years ago. Borland has been in retreat mode for some time, and maybe (just maybe), Borland did not think the Corel mentality was the way to go… too "uphilly"? Am I right?
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). We have been Borland’s customers for too long to hear now that "WE" are not profitable enough, therefore ALM is the way to go.
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).
At last I leave you with a quote by Florence Nightingale, “Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion”.
> The little cahunas (the ones who use, and buy Borlands products) are not happy and at the end will suffer the most.
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.
David,
I appreciate your answers, some opinions/facts I agree with and some I don’t. I am still very pessimistic about this "spin-off" and I don’t think you have or can convince(d) me that Borland is not in retreat.
The best and most effective way to win a war is to divide and conquer. Now, splitting Borland is at least in my view proof of "conquered". A sure sign of a strong company in today’s world is its size. Most companies try to merge and become more efficient by sharing common tasks/responsibilities. By splitting, I see that Borland is going the other way.
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….
> I am still very pessimistic about this "spin-off" and I don’t think you have or can convince(d) me that Borland is not in retreat.
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.
Mr. Intersimone:
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.
Hmm Errm David.
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 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.
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.
Hello David
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
David,
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
Hello David
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
Hi, David,
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
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