Re: Delphi 8 ... is it a worthy investment?

From: Christopher Latta (nobody_at_nowhere.not)
Date: 03/02/04 

Date: 2 Mar 2004 04:59:32 -0800

Nick Hodges (TeamB) wrote:

Good work Nick. I hope your post goes some way towards stopping the
incessant personal tirades on this newsgroup.

I don't want to get involved in such pointless debates. On top of that,
I don't - I *really* don't - want this post to be seen as another
negative post bashing Borland. I just want to show a perspective on why
the directions Borland has taken is effecting people personally. I
merely wish to comment on this part:

> You, Dave, on the other hand, are an enigma to me. Having been a
> Borland champion for many years, you've suddenly changed your tune for
> whatever reason, and seem to have become one of those folks who will,
> in general, quarter no praise of Borland. (Again, this is my
> perception). You and I disagree in a number of areas about what
> Borland should do, and that's fine. But for some reason, your
> position on Borland seems to me to have moved beyond that into some
> sort of personal thing. Again, I have no idea why.

I can't speak for Dave, but for many of us it /is/ a personal thing. If
the recent survey is representative, most of Borland's customers are
solo developers or small shops (~90% work in teams of 10 or fewer, ~41%
are solo developers -
http://homepages.borland.com/davidi/bdn/2003BDNSurveyResults.html )

That puts a lot of Borland's customers in the same position as me. I
personally have to pull out my wallet and hand over the cash to pay for
the Delphi I use. It has to compete with other financial demands and
opportunities.

Up until Delphi 6 this was not really an issue - it was always easy to
justify purchasing the next version of Delphi. Borland consistently
gave us the tools to take on our competitors and win; to deliver better
software faster.

Then along comes Delphi 7. On the face of it, Delphi 7 was an exciting
upgrade. Sure, the core product didn't change much, but many third
party tools were integrated into what Borland shipped - ModelMaker,
IntraWeb, Bold, Rave Reports - as well as Kylix in the box; a true
Studio package. However, some of these products required buying
upgrades or support from the original vendor for future upgrades, and
afaik aren't continuing to be provided out of the box. Products like
IntraWeb which had a Linux version weren't supplied for Kylix. Bold got
dropped for ECO, with no migration path. ModelMaker was dropped for
Together. IntraWeb is not in D8 (dropped for ASP.Net), and I doubt it
will be in the Win32 version of D8 (heck, we don't know if there will
even be a Win32 D8 yet). So IntraWeb and ModelMaker are back to being
third party products. Kylix wasn't included in D8. So Delphi 7 was
really full of attractive paths that were dead ends as far as the
out-of-the-box product was concerned. Delphi 7 seems to be a group of
some of the best third party software bundled with Delphi simply to
meet the economic need to get a release out the door, with no thought
to the future direction. It was a sidestep from the main path of
Delphi. Delphi 7 has been out for almost two years now with no core
update. The only official word from Borland for those of us still
firmly in the Win32 world is that in the beginning of March they will
"provide additional information on related plans around Delphi Win32
technology" - which could mean anything, really.

Then along comes Delphi 8. For anybody who needed to go to .Net, it was
too late. For anybody relying on a patch to Delphi 7, it was too early.
As one TeamB member pointed out, it is different enough that a
migration from D7 to D8 is about the same as one to C# for some
projects. Delphi 8 was also pushed out the door to meet economic,
rather than technical, ends. From reports, it was buggy and not feature
complete. Consequently, immediately after release Borland have had to
work hard on a bugfix patch, and then on a patch in March to include
the features it should have shipped with, with additional database
drivers later in the quarter. This hardly accords with the often quoted
mantra "When its ready".

C#Builder seems to have suffered similarly from being pushed out the
door early, requiring urgent patches. Like Kylix did, and C++BuilderX
appears to have a long way to go to provide the functionality of
C++Builder. On top of these issues, we have seen what has happened to
the Kylix (no updates in 2004 - and then what?) and C++Builder (no
migration path for VCL) developers.

Borland have stated a renewed emphasis on the corporate developer. Many
of us remember back to the Inprise days and worry about this. From my
recollection of the comments made by Borland management at the time, it
was the loyalty of the smaller developers that got Borland out of the
hole that it created. So much so that Dale fuller himself stated "The
developer is King" at Borcon. From recent performance, with software
being shipped to meet stock market driven shipping dates rather than
technical targets, the slogan probably should be changed to "The stock
market is King".

It has been a rough couple of years. The industry is going through a
huge inflection point, with .Net emerging and Linux strengthening. The
rules have changed, and Borland, being at the forefront of technology
and especially in their role as a compiler developer, has felt this
more than most. For the first time ever, we have Microsoft providing a
viable alternative to our beloved Delphi, and one more commercially
acceptable to the job market. I'm sure that Borland have reacted to
these changes in they best way that they thought they could, with
regard to the allocation of their resources, their staff, and the
effect on shareholders and customers - both present and future.

Nonetheless, their decisions as related above bite hard on their
current customers, especially the smaller developers who have been a
core market for Borland. Consequently, there has been an erosion of
confidence and loyalty, a loyalty that has up until now been extremely
enthusiastic.

The industry moves on, and Borland must move with it. However, some
customers feel they are being left in the wake.

Why do we take this personally? For me, it affects my income, my
career, the future of my business, and my ability to provide for my
family. It doesn't get any more personal than that.

> I'd like us all to realize that 99.999% of us post here because we
> love Delphi and want Borland to succeed. We can disagree with how
> that might happen, but that doesn't mean we don't love Delphi.

I agree. It is this love for Delphi that also makes passions run high
and take things personally, especially if we feel someone is
mistreating the one we love. :-)

Christopher Latta

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A case for Microsoft
    ... specifically Delphi. ... set (in the meeting to make the decision, the developers' comments were ... "Borland looks like it is back on track" and "if they would stop wasting ... If you've used D2005 or D2006 and VS Studio - you know that the IDE ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: Stop the negativism!
    ... We've heard this for a few years from Borland, ... told that it's strange that they are not doing what their customers ... Download Counters data has covered all countries Borland does ... The number of registrations since Delphi 2005 does not give them ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: Delphi 2005 Update 4 IS needed !!!
    ... I use a lot of 3rd party tools and am not doing much that requires web ... version just to make sure Borland didn't go completely out of business, ... I am wondering how many Delphi developers are in the same situation as ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: Why arent you upgrading?
    ... we've seen "Microsoft already did ... they don't need Switzerland Borland anymore. ... the few .NET users Delphi ever had mostly now are gone to ... customers the moment they become available to Microsoft customers. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: Why blame Borland?
    ... Borland will have to play catch up again. ... Delphi 1-6 catch VS 6 and lower, ... That not matter if is good enough for us and for our customers. ... build from Delphi companys... ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)