What’s in a name?
For many years I’ve been fortunate to be part of an iconic software company and team of brilliant individuals that have built some of the most recognizable tools in the history of software development. You can go virtually anywhere in the world and meet someone who uses or has used Turbo Pascal, Turbo C++, Delphi, C++Builder, InterBase or JBuilder. And if they don’t, they probably know someone who does. Our customers are the most knowledgeable, persistent, vocal, creative, loyal, and objective in the software development world. Our customers are the most valuable part of our organization and our success. Over the years, one of the most exciting, interesting and gratifying parts of my job has been meeting customers and learning hands-on about the software solutions they build with our products. Learning and seeing how Delphi powers massively distributed medical billing systems and at the same time is running large scale manufacturing and robotics applications. How JBuilder is used in NASA’s Mars Rover program to explore new worlds and back here on Earth right in our own Monterey Bay at MBARI for exploring our undersea universe, and yet at the same time is used in the world’s largest banks and financial institutions. Learning how C++Builder is powering real-time Wall Street trading floor systems, suburban power-grid distribution stations, and ground connected flight planning systems in the cockpits of our domestic chartered airlines. CodeGear developer tools are at the heart of both global industry and information and it has been an absolute pleasure to meet, know and work with our customers during this first incredible chapter.
Today we are beginning the next chapter that joins CodeGear’s developer tool products and teams with Embarcadero Technologies. It is a great combination on so many levels, but on the simplest level it’s about tools. Embarcadero is a company that is successful because it’s a high performance team that “get’s it” and understands the value of how ultra-productive tools benefit customers and listens carefully to the problems customers face. Everyday problems like getting complex database design, development, and management tasks done quickly with any customer relevant database platform.
It’s interesting to think about just a few of our neighboring customers, roles, and products. For example, today Embarcadero creates visual tools to help data and application architects model and understand complex logical and physical databases, sound familiar? CodeGear creates award winning visual modeling tools to help architects and developers visually model and understand applications. Embarcadero creates the most popular SQL IDE in the world for writing and debugging SQL and stored procedures. Used by more than 3 million developers globally, CodeGear creates some of the most popular app dev IDEs in the world for writing and debugging software applications for a variety of popular platforms. Embarcadero is in beta today with a new database profiling and optimization toolset that is simply amazing to see in action. CodeGear develops one of the most popular Java profilers and optimization tools in the Java market.
Before today Embarcadero and CodeGear separately created ultra-high productivity tools for designing, building, and running databases and applications. Starting today Embarcadero Technologies is the company building tools to help application and database developers (sometimes on the same team, sometimes the same person, occasionally mutually exclusive) get difficult tasks done quickly, with quality, and for a wide variety of database and application platforms.
A few things we care a lot about
- Flexibility. Database support must be heterogeneous and seamless
- Open Source. Our customers must achieve more value (speed, quality, productivity) from Open Source than their competitors are getting
- Speed. If it’s slow it’s broken.
- Teams. Tools should enable team members to work together more efficiently and seamlessly with the tools they own. Tools that force processes, stacks, and platforms aren’t designed with real people in mind. Sell them to someone else’s boss.
- Price. Tools should be widely available and fairly priced offering high value to every skill level and business size.
- Quality. Tools should help our customers deliver higher quality than their competitors.
- Stacks. Customers should be able to dictate software stacks based on their needs. Tools that dictate or steer to one vendors stack doesn’t have the customer’s interest at heart.
- Productivity. Customers need to be able to out-produce and outpace their competitors while still delivering higher quality.
- Community. Embarcadero is community of millions that includes employees, customers, partners, resellers, component and add-on vendors, students, journalists, and more
An Embarcadero is typically a waterfront wharf or pier, no doubt a launching point for many great voyages. Here’s to ours.
Michael
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Posted by Michael Swindell on July 1st, 2008 under Uncategorized | Comment now »Disaster Relief for China Earthquake Survivors
There are some excellent organizations that make it fast and easy to contribute assitance to the hundreds of thousands affected by the China earthquake and Myanmar cyclone.
Right now if you contribute to the China Earthquake fund thru Mercy Corps, the Western Union Foundation will match every contribution dollar for dollar up to $250k - as of right now they are up to $63k. Mercy Corps also has a matching donor for up to $250k for the Myanmar fund, they are currently up to $84k.
Other reputible organizations that are working directly with groups "on the ground" to aid China Earthquake survivors and Myanmar cyclone survivors include:
Red Cross - http://www.redcross.org
Americares - http://www.americares.org
Worldvision - http://www.worldvision.org
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Posted by Michael Swindell on May 14th, 2008 under Uncategorized | Comment now »ISVs and MicroISVs: You’re not only covered…
The combined Embarcadero and CodeGear will continue to be *the* go-to company for ISVs (independent software vendors) and MicroISVs.
With the announcement this week on Embarcadero’s signing of a definitive agreement to acquire CodeGear, there is much chatter about the combination of application and database development and how sweet the combination of CodeGear and Embarcadero will be (the combined company will be able produce incredible heterogeneous products and features for every app, web, or database developer on the planet that would simply be impractical, impossible, or insane for just about any other company) - however, if you’re a developer who doesn’t use or require a database today then "how is all of this news a good thing for me?" Well rest assured it is good. Very good.
For certain, the technical combination of CodeGear and Embarcadero will enable app/database development innovations on a whole new level, but at the core of all of our IDE tools is the application itself. While the majority of applications today are database driven or connected, for many hundreds of thousands of developers - particularly ISVs and MicroISVs building packaged software, a database may either not be required or is just not at the top of your shopping list. More than half of ISV/MicroISV packaged applications include a database but what typically matters most to developers building packaged software is performance, footprint, quality, deployment, and usability. If you are a developer building packaged software you want to be able to maximize the value your customers’ hardware, CPUs, graphics, and OS. You want to build applications that look good, work good, and go fast. You want to be able to leverage hardware and equipment connected to PCs. You are beginning to build applications that are starting to crack the 4GB barrier and your customers have begun to reach critical mass with 64bit machines. You want to exercise both CPU cores that are in most desktops and laptops today, and you want to start designing to leverage the four and eight cores that will soon be commodity. You want language features that will simplify coding and increase resilience without bloating the footprint or forcing you to use a VM. You want to build apps that look like art and work like art - without necessarily being artistically blessed yourself. You want to build applications for a global customer base but you don’t want to have to sink all your waking hours internationalizing. And many of you want to be able to deploy to the other cool OS desktops on the playground.
And then there is that moment when the databaseless ISV decides it’s time add data persistence. For many an experienced programmer who happens to be completely inexperienced with databases, you might as well be learning to speak Klingon. That’s when well integrated connectivity, components, tools, and products come to the rescue. You want it to be seamless, incredibly high performance, often embedded into/with your application, and you don’t want it to get in the way. Oh, and you want to use the database engine/server from the vendor of you or your customers’ choosing.
Since the founding of Borland we’ve been a leader in IDEs, languages, and compilers, and a particular favorite among ISVs and MicroISVs. We’re also established and recognized leaders in RAD Client/Server database and Java/Web application server development. Since spinning out of Borland a year and a half ago, as CodeGear we’ve made significant technology achievements and steps forward for our customers, but combining Embarcadero and CodeGear creates a developer tool powerhouse that will accelerate our combined vision and our ability to address your needs. If you love what we’ve been doing - we’ll only get better, and if you have a lingering complaint, we’ll be better able to accelerate the solution. By combining with Embarcadero you will no doubt hear a lot more about databases and database development, but we also will be turning up the volume (externally and in our development plans) on the needs of ISVs and packaged software, and we are listening to you. You will very soon have a 500+ person global company behind you that is 100% focused on application and database developers. We will be the one stop shop for all developers – that most certainly includes ISVs and MicroISVs. Get ready, it’s going to be fun. Michael
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Posted by Michael Swindell on May 9th, 2008 under Uncategorized | 11 Comments »Delphi-PHP.net: D4PHP Forums and Blog
Came across the Delphi-PHP website today. Delphi-PHP.NET is a nice D4PHP (delphi for php) web site by G&J Solutions with an informative blog including some excellent original content tutorial videos. Another gem here is their Delphi-PHP forums. The forum is an active community dedicated to D4PHP allowing members to get help and advice on all aspects of using D4PHP and PHP programming in general. A nice standout feature was their forum integrated CodeGear D4PHP newgroup feeds - so forum users can read/post directly into to the CodeGear D4PHP newsgroups from within the forum interface. Very nice integration and a nice destination for D4PHP developers and PHP developers in general.
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Posted by Michael Swindell on October 22nd, 2007 under Uncategorized | Comment now »ready to grab the rail?
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Posted by Michael Swindell on September 14th, 2007 under Uncategorized | Comment now »Update: JomiTech VCL4PHP Components and other Delphi for PHP News
A few days ago I wrote about JomiTech’s promising new component set for Delphi for PHP. JomiTech has set the 1yr subscription price for their new Delphi for PHP Themed Component Lite Set at a very affordable $29 ($20yr renewals). The Tab, Grid, and Expanders are especially nice IMO. JT is also offering a sampler set of five components for free - the user login and raw output components look most interesting in the Free pack. The full component set which I hear is going to be a very powerful package is still in development and will have a $129 1yr subscription ($99 renewals).
In other Delphi for PHP news:
Delphi for PHP Update 1 Released - The first bug fix update for Delphi for PHP. More on the way plus lots of planning going on for the next major release.
Update 1 Includes:
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Posted by Michael Swindell on May 22nd, 2007 under Uncategorized | Comment now »Delphi 2007 enhanced WebSevices support - Plus FREE eBayAPI4Delphi
One of the many features that were updated in Delphi 2007 is Delphi’s built-in SOAP/WSDL support. Delphi 6 was the first ever IDE and compiler to provide built-in support for SOAP Web Services, including code insight for services, and simple client and server support. … it seamlessly supported creating SOAP servers from standard Delphi methods, and the WSDL import and RIO components make interacting with Web Services easy and natural.
In Delphi 2007, Delphi’s SOAP/WSDL support was significantly updated to support newer service features such as external schemas (which is how eBay did the integration when they aquired PayPal) and the SOAP runtime was updated to support optional and unbounded elements which are used by many newer APIs. The result is support for newer versions of popular ecommerce and Web2.0 APIs such as Amazon, eBay, MapPoint, and Paypal to name a few.
eBayAPI4Delphi works with Delphi (win32) v5, 6, 7, 2005, 2006 and 2007! and is available thru June 15th for FREE (w/o Source Code). New features implemented in v3:
- Full implementation of eBay XML API v.511
- Full unicode support
- New XML engine (way Faster with Less merory used)
- New default HTTPS layer based on wininet
- All HTTPS Layer now support gzip compression (Winitnet, urlmon, indy9, indy10)
- EPS (Ebay Picture Service)
- Delphi 2007 libraries
- "For in Loops" (Enumerator) support for TXWSDLArray
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Posted by Michael Swindell on May 21st, 2007 under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »Fun Delphi 2007 Features: Live Templates
Introduced in Delphi 2006, Live Templates are like “RAD for writing code” by providing dynamic “live“ macros that guide you thru code structures. They can autofill elements and iterations, and they can even wrap themselves around and act on selected code. Hot key invokable, there are many Live Templates included in Delphi 2007. Under the hood, they are simple scriptable XML files but they are very powerful, they can query the compiler, invoke refactorings, and just about anything you can think of. So you can use the included templates or you can write your own code templates that can do all kinds of crazy things you might think of at 2am on too much coffee. There is even a template to guide you thru building templates 
The templates are all hotkey invokable with Ctrl-J and they are also editable (just right click on them from the Templates View and select Edit) or can be used as samples to learn how to build new custom templates. Here is a list of all the Live Templates included in Delphi 2007:
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Posted by Michael Swindell on May 18th, 2007 under Uncategorized | 6 Comments »40 Million Reasons for Delphi 2007
What’s the best feature you can add to your applications today to appeal to customer upgrades? It’s Windows Vista support. Delphi 2007 is the first and only (until C++Builder 2007 ships in June) Vista ready development environment for building and seamlessly upgrading rich Windows GUI applications for Windows Vista. Delphi 2007’s Vista ready VCL makes it as easy as a recompile, in most cases, to upgrade older VCL framework based applications to instantly support Windows Vista and the Aero UI and desktop effects.
Microsoft has announced that it has shipped 40m Windows Vista licenses in 100 days and that number is going to keep climbing given that nearly every new PC is shipping with Vista today. Delphi 2007, and soon C++Builder 2007, you can provide high impact upgrades for your end user applications and customers with minimal effort. And because Delphi is the only shipping Windows dev platform with Vista support today you have a competetive advantage over your competition who might not be using Delphi.
And what do customers think of Delphi 2007?
"I love the new Delphi 2007. It’s sooooo fast and reliable. It’s amazing how fast it now loads the IDE, even with tons of third party components. This is an impressive upgrade. After I use it for a few days I just can’t go back to Delphi 7. I have to say, you guys rock. Thanks for a brilliant tool." Rui Menino, CTO, EISA
"Delphi 2007 for Win32 is a must-have IDE for any Windows developer!" Markus Spoettl toolsfactory software inc.
"CodeGear’s stellar commitment to the developer community forms a sharp contrast with other technologies that are literally "invented for obsolescence". Delphi 2007 is the only Win32 IDE with support for building native Win32 Vista applications with advanced features like Vista Glass, and in the good Delphi tradition, without any changes to existing source code. Even .NET applications require a major UI overhaul just to be glass compliant." Sinan Karaca - InstallAware
"Delphi2007 is the best native WIN32 development tool on the market. Now it is faster, more powerful and reliable as never before. If you still use Delphi 7 definitely it is a time to upgrade." Tomasz Kosinski www.TatukGIS.com
"Delphi 2007 is exceeding all my expectations! As a Micro ISV, the tremendous increase in speed and stability means I can run Delphi 2007 all day, be a lot more productive. This is the best release since Delphi 7! Thank you CodeGear for listening!" Eric Fortier Tech Logic, Inc. http://www.tlnewsreader.com
"Yes! Developers matters for CodeGear! They did a tremendous job to make Delphi 2007 for win32 the best and fastest IDE ever realized since D7! The Delphi Spirit is back" Stéphane Wierzbicki - Responsable Informatique
"A development powerhouse for RAD Win32 and a pinnacle of performance and quality!" Jarrod Davis
SoftBeat - Download.Install.Play.
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Posted by Michael Swindell on May 16th, 2007 under Uncategorized | 10 Comments »CodeGear + Ruby on Rails = Sweet Sweet Relief
Had a chance to chat with Mike Pence from “Mike does Tech” yesterday and today his blog post sum’s up our ROR effort quite nicely. Mike’s blog is becomming a regular feed in the Ruby scene and I’m looking forward to Mike’s feedback on our Ruby on Rails IDE “that currently has no name“ - and certainly it’s secret code name is not “diamante rojo”
Hey Mike, we’re hooking you up with the beta tonite!
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Posted by Michael Swindell on May 15th, 2007 under Uncategorized | 9 Comments »Server Response from: dnrh1.codegear.com
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