Product roadmaps on the way . . .
The day I started at CodeGear, I got peppered by folks inside the company about publishing product road maps. I subsequently held two Community Chats later in my first week and got pummeled by customers regarding our lack of published road maps. My response to both constituencies was "I got it, we’re on it." It’s taken us a little longer than I would have preferred, but I think Michael Swindell and I have finally wrestled the beast to the ground.
We will begin posting road maps for each of our major product lines in early June (2007). Delphi will be the first road map published, with road maps for the other products in the CodeGear portfolio to following shortly thereafter.
In general, a view of a vendor ’s focus for the future is obviously very important to current and prospective customers . . . and it’s unacceptable that we were not providing visibility into our road map for a significant period of time. The mixed messages that have been sent to the marketplace regarding the future of "The Developer Tools Group at Borland," "Devco", and finally CodeGear only served to exacerbate the situation. I get it, and we’re on it!
Like most topics, the vast majority of the emails I received from customers on the topic . . . constructively, yet strongly, reiterated the importance of product road maps. A small minority of emails included comments like "We’re tired of you hiding behind SOX." I’m paraphrasing, because the comments were usually stated with much more colorful language. As I stated above, the fact they we had a significant gap in publishing road maps in unacceptable. With that said, the issues facing all software companies regarding road maps are revenue recognition related, not SOX related. Most software consumers would say "Hey, that’s your problem, not mine. Where’s my road map?" Fair enough! If anyone is actually warped enough to care about the hardships us poor software companies face regarding product road maps, do a little research into AICPA Statement of Position No. 97-2 (commonly referred to SOP 97-2). If you want a little light bed time reading, check out KPMG’s riveting overview of SOP 97-2 at http://www.us.kpmg.com/microsite/attachments/2005/SoftwareRevRecognitionBook2005.pdf. It’s a fascinated read for one and all!
Bottom line . . . we haven’t met your expectations. I get it, we’re on it. You will hear more from Michael soon on where they will be posted [they don't trust me with the details].
out for now . . .
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Posted by Jim Douglas on May 21st, 2007 under Uncategorized |21 Responses to “Product roadmaps on the way . . .”
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May 21st, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Thank you, Jim. … Looking forward to the Delphi roadmap in particular.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Thanks, this is what we have all been waiting for especially now with the new company and sudden change of guard. A roadmap will put many at ease. Can’t wait.
May 21st, 2007 at 11:00 pm
That’s great!
But a bit to late, we have moved on to VS.
There was too much uncertainty and we wanted something more stable.
Sorry…
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:41 am
Great news, please keep them updated as well.
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:18 am
Where have you been all this time, Jim? CodeGear has improved *a lot* after you came along and you’re only there for a couple months!
Well done and keep up the good work!
Now if you guys could fix Delphi 2007’s help, I’d be in heaven!
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:30 am
Great news,
I hope the roadmap will cover Linux, Win 64 and support the latest .Net tech. because Borland/CodeGear are very Late here, a lot have of developers jumped to VS2005 and C# because Delphi still use the old .Net 1.1
I hope Delphi will be back stronger and a head from MS tools and other like before
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:52 am
SO when are they going to change CEOs again ?
You guys are unreliable and unbelievable..
We have moved to VS.
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:16 am
Great News
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:26 am
Hi Jim,
Your blog post is much appreciated. Also for the news, also for the words. But, for your sake, (and also for community’s one), perhaps is better to publish them in 1st of June and in 2nd Michael and Nick to put a public beta of the product somewhere for downloading freely. Believe me, I appreciate very much your efforts, but IMHO you have a great problem right now (not because of you but because of your ‘heritage’ - I think that you know what I mean) so, if the Highlander won’t be validated by the community then you’ll be in a very, very delicate situation, as company. And, IMHO, isn’t fair. As the days go on, it’s more clearer that the Highlander will be either the best Delphi ever or the last.
my 2c.
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:29 am
Hi Jim,
Your blog post is much appreciated. Also for the news, also for the words. But, for your sake, (and also for community’s one), perhaps is better to publish them in 1st of June and in 2nd Michael and Nick to put a public beta of the product somewhere for downloading freely. Believe me, I appreciate very much your efforts, but IMHO you have a great problem right now (not because of you but because of your ‘heritage’ - I think that you know what I mean) so, if the Highlander won’t be validated by the community then you’ll be in a very, very delicate situation, as company. And, IMHO, isn’t fair. As the days go on, it’s more clearer that the Highlander will be either the best Delphi ever or the last.
my 2c.
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:30 am
Sorry about posting twice. It seems that’s a bug in the blog engine…
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:55 am
I get it, you’re on it
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:07 am
Wonderful news. Look forward to the roadmap’s release.
Reggie White and Young K, is the life and death of VB6 an example of stability?
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Seeing is believing in regard to these product RoadMaps as far as I am concerned.
If you look on the news groups at moment the thread about a Turbo Delphi 2007 at some point someone asks :-
‘Will there be a Turbo or was this a one off?’
the reply they got from CG :-
‘I can’t speak about future releases right now. I’m sorry.’
No specifics about when/if there will be a Turbo Delphi 2007 was asked. Just will there be one or not at an unspecified point in future.
Doesn’t Bode well IMHO
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Too late. I can’t wait any more for full WinCE support.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Great news!
Keep up the good work Jim!
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
It is always the paretto principle when comes to customer satisfaction. It is a welcome News out of the era of borland secrecy. CG needs to shift its positioning of products from a mere language features to application frameworks which would bring in the $ from Enterprise IT decision makers to fund the roadmap. Walking the talk matters now.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Fernando, I get it, and we’re on it!
June 8th, 2007 at 5:36 am
What we were waiting for june 2007 it’s a Delphi IDE running under framework 2.0, not just another new roadmap (the 3rd, 4th, the 10th since 2 years ?) that will surely be different from the reality as the preceding ones…
Developers are not voters that can be happy just with electoral promises, we need concrete tools to work and eat every day !
You’re announcing delphi-like PHP and Ruby IDE, you’ve just released a new Win32 Delphi (D2007).. what a waste of time.. As 90% of my customers during the last 2 years, I moved to VS2005 and C# and nor me, nor any of my customers will do the way back. Delphi has been the better IDE under Win32, unfortunately since at least 2 years, Borland/CodeGear is killing the product. Sad story.
June 8th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Kylix
Delphi
InterBase
June 11th, 2007 at 7:20 am
Please… Can you include "bug fixes" in your roadmap ?