Guess for Borlandīs new 'Corporate Roadmap'

From: Peter Sleuth (nomail_at_nospam.com)
Date: 08/18/04 

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 02:48:03 +0200

if I might add a speculative uneducated guess (I donīt have any background
info, I donīt work for Borland nor do I have any other source of information
at Borland), I would assume the following:

Speculative guess: on BorCon, Borland will announce a Corporate Roadmap that
will bring us
====> a single, unified development IDE for Java, Delphi, C++ and C# until
2006 <====

The details:

Borland recognizes that the development IDE is a primary part (the core
part) of their ALM strategy. Currently they have two IDE-frameworks/product
lines:
- Primetime (JBuilder/C++BuilderX)
- Galileo/BDS (Delphi/C#Builder/former C++Builder)

All their ALM-tools, such as CaliberRM have to be integrated into both
IDE-frameworks, otherwise their ALM-strategy will be halfheartedly only.
While the latest JBuilder-release has a superb CaliberRM-integration, Delphi
so far has only a browser-based integration with CaliberRM in Delphi8, and
it is already outdated (supports only CaliberRM 5.x) and no new integration
has yet been released. That shows that Borland does not have the resources
to continually enhance both IDE-frameworks at the same speed, Delphi/Galileo
already seems to lack in ALM-terms behind JBuilder/primetime.
Other ALM-tools such as Together are available for JBuilder and even
Visual-Studio.NET, but not for Delphi (so far). Furtheron, their current
C++BuilderX and C#Builder-products are not very successful, partially due to
a lack of resources to add unique features to the products.

There is only one logical conclusion to this problem:

===>>> Borland will announce a roadmap where until 2006 all its IDEs will be
merged into a single, unified super IDE. <<<===

Then they could concentrate all their IDE-development teams from both the
Java group and the .NET-business unit at borland on this unified IDE, this
would be far more efficient then continously developing two separate
IDE-frameworks (primetime and Galileo/BDS) and continuously developing
ALM-integrations for both.

Borland would once more be the switzerland of software development,
supporting the most important programming languages and frameworks all from
within one unified IDE. Would fit quite well with their Janeva-product line,
too, the unified IDE could also be bundled with JDataStore and their new
.NET-database product.

That would mean that Borland would have a unified IDE in 2006 that would
support Java, C++, Delphi, C# and probably J# and VB.Net. Such a beast could
easily fight off most other Java-IDEs such as Eclipse (that already has some
very rudimentary thirdparty-support for C++ and C#) and would also be a
viable competitor for Visual Studio.NET. Where VS.NET gives you C#, VB.NET,
C++ and J#, Borlands new unified IDE will give you Java, C#, C++ and Delphi,
or to put it in other words, it would allow you to develop for the Java/J2EE
platform, the .NET-platform and the Win32-platform, all from within a single
unified IDE. Furtheron, Java developers would be able to use technologies
such as J2EE and ASP.NET (via J#) all from within the same IDE, giving them
the best of both worlds in one IDE. This would be a unique selling point to
all Fortune 1000 customers that probably want to develop their server
functionality in Java and their frontends on .NET, and also might want to
maintain legacy apps written in VB or Delphi from within the same unified
IDE.

>From a technical standpoint, Borlands new 'ueber'-IDE would be based on
JBuilder/primetime, as this IDE is probably a bit more advanced then the
Galileo-line, offers far more addins and ALM-integrations compared to
Galileo-based IDEs, and also works cross-plattform (could easily work as a
c#-IDE on Linux targeting mono, or hosting the kylix-compiler on linux,
too).

As we have all seen with C++BuilderX, offering a Java-based IDE for other
languages is a risky adventure that might not succeed, because previous
Delphi and C++Builder6-users might not accept a Java-based IDE. But this
time Borland would make it better, C++BuilderX had conceptually a good IDE
approach, but the development team working on it was just far too small and
underfunded, the lack of a Win32-based VCL form-designer not to mention.
This time they have learned their lesson, they will throw all their
IDE-development teams on it, to make sure that even both C++Builder and
Delphi-users will accept a new primetime/Java-based IDE. To achieve this,
the new IDE (its Windows-edition only) must be able to host Win32-based
VCL-formdesigners, furtheron most Delphi- and C++Builder specific
functionality must be taken from the existing Delphi-IDE and integrated as
Win32-based addins into the new IDE. The new IDE must also be able to host
.NET-based formdesigners, so that the most of the current
C#Builder-functionality can be integrated into the new IDE aswell, allowing
to design WinForms and using ASP.NET. After all, this wouldnīt be a pure
Java-based IDE anymore, but an IDE derived from the Java-based primetime
framework with quite a lot Win32- and .NET code in it (windows edition of
the IDE-only) (remember that the Galileo/Delphi-IDE is also not exclusively
written in Delphi, some parts are in C++, others in other languages too).

In the end, the new IDE would look like this:

windows edition of the IDE:
take JBuilder, put all functionality from C++BuilderX into it, let it use
the Delphi-compiler, allow it to host a Win32-based VCL-FormDesigner for
Delphi and C++, integrate most functionality from the Delphi-IDE into it by
either emulating it or hosting it as Win32-addins, put C# into it, let it
allow to host a .Net-based FormDesigner for WinForms and ASP.NET, put the
best ideas from VS.NET into it

linux edition of the IDE:
take JBuilder, put all functionality from C++BuilderX into it, put the
Kylix-compiler into, put C# into it targeting mono.

solaris + macOSX-edition
take JBuilder and put all functionality from C++BuilderX with it.

In addition, throw all current and future ALM-integrations and addins for
JBuilder into it, in addition, probably add a compatibility layer that
allows the IDE to execute at least some of the current Delphi-IDE addins (in
the windows-edition of the IDE).

et voila, this is Borlands new innovative unified killer IDE in 2006.

Furtheron, Borland would bundle for a time-period of two years their (then)
old D9-IDE with the product, so that previous Delphi customers could for a
transition period use both the old Galileo-based IDE and the new unified
primetime-based IDE for Delphi-development, thus reducing criticism from the
Delphi-community and easing migration to the new unified IDE.

Would Delphi and C++Builder users accept such a unified Java-based IDE for
.NET/Win32/Java-development from Borland and buy into it?

Would Borland have enough manpower to create such a beast?

Would Borlands Java-competitors such as IBM, IntelliJ, Bea, SUN or Oracle
follow with similar IDEs that support .NET-development from within
Java-IDEs?

Would Microsoft keep Visual-Studio.NET a pure .NET-only IDE, thus ignoring
the opportunity to integrate part of the huge Java/J2EE-IDE-market and thus
allowing Borland to capture all of the lucrative market segment for a
unified Java/.NET IDE and the unified ALM-solutions for this IDE?

Best regards,

Peter Sleuth

P.S.:

The unified IDE-strategy could be complemented by a similar plan to extend
Borlands J2EE-server (Borland Enterprise Server) with .NET-hosting
functionality (of course on Windows only (probably later on linux too with
mono?)), thus letting him execute both J2EE and .NET-server-apps (in
different processes, of course). This would be the unified App-Server
strategy, again uniting the best of both worlds. Technically this would mean
hosting the .NET-Runtime from within BES, not an easy task, but probably
achievable.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Opportunity passed by
    ... migrating from Delphi to C# for .NET development? ... Borland already sealed their own fate insofar as dev. ... ments offer is the fact that they are all under the same IDE, ... then there wouldn't have been a CLX for Windows and the CLX on Linux ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: The alternative Delphi roadmap to success
    ... Delphi 4 is a pretty fast and stable IDE that even runs stably ... Unfortunately Borland is behind right now, ... The Explorer Edition is exactly the same as the Professional ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: Win32, Linux, .NET >> Where is this mess going to?
    ... I already work with both Delphi and VS/C# - which I use depends on my ... Borland have always "lost" in the sense that more people used VS than ... forgot), D8 and now D2005 are a progression, changing from the old IDE ... Borland have no choice but to support .NET if they want to continue ...
    (borland.public.delphi.thirdpartytools.general)
  • Re: Borlands IDE bugs and plans
    ... IDE bugs have never been a priority to me. ... Borland is screwing up on Delphi. ... How about some white papers per Nick Hodges on the Borland Web ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: And now my thoughts on Delphis survival
    ... perception that the "classic" JBuilder has been shelved. ... IDE-specific framework) with the Java IDE plug-in. ... That's a much bigger platform change than PrimeTime->Eclipse ... Want to help make Delphi and InterBase better? ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)