Re: Brian Moelk guesses (wrongly) that Delphi is Going to be Killed

"Brian Moelk" wrote
>
> I don't think I assumed that directly as Allen discusses in his blog
> entry. The main point I made is that Borland *must* support
> VS.NET in their ALM strategy, so supporting BDS is additional
> cost.

Loading your gun while keeping a tiger at bay is also additional effort.
That doesn't mean it isn't your best chance at survival.

> You must admit that Delphi has been adopted in many shops because
> of the TP heritage. That's just a fact.

In small shops perhaps--not at the enterprise level.

> Yes, Borland must support VS.NET because that is where the larger market
> resides. The goal isn't maximizing revenue/profit? That's news to me.

What is best, even necessary in the short term is not necessarily best, or
even prudent, in the long term. There's a vast difference between supporting
some VS integration for now, and committing yourself forever to becoming a
remora living off scraps.

> you have already gone with a two company solution. If you truly
> wanted a single company, Microsofts full stack offering will look much
> more appealing no matter what.

MS has an undeniable advantage in being the OS vendor. I've never denied
that, I just don't see any reason to intentionally make it an order of
magnitude worse by ceding them the IDE as well.

> I don't know what happens to Borland's ALM strategy when MS gets in
> the game? I imagine they will continue to try to be better than MS' Team
> System.

Will be hard to do. Would be even harder with MS controlling all the
integration points.

> But Borland doesn't want to be selling IDE's anymore anyway. The IDE is
> baggage for their ALM strategy. That's the point.

Your point, your interpretation.

> How many third party components and frameworks do you use? Do
> you integrate them together? Do you build your applications on top
> of database servers? All of those functions are things developers do
> every day.

The components I use were designed to be embedded into my stuff. That's not
the case with VS. Plugging a component into my application vs. plugging my
language and extensions into VS.NET are a complete role reversal, not
analogous cases.

> I recognize there are differences between Eclipse and VS.NET. The
> only question that you need to answer is that for *ALM* integration,
> is VS.NET open enough.

Without knowing all the details of Borland's integration plans, only Borland
can answer that. I have no evidence that they think so. In fact, the
evidence would suggest that not even Eclipse architecture is open enough for
them to confine themselves to a plug-in role.

> > 7. It misses the point entirely that JBuilder IS being rewritten over
> > Eclipse: if having your own IDE weren't important, why wouldn't
> > Borland simply resell some other Eclipse-based IDE?
>
> We don't know what form JBuilder over Eclipse will take when released. I
> suspect that it will be *heavily* focused on ALM integration, with most of
> the developer productivity stuff ported to Eclipse from PrimeTime. But
> hey, I could be wrong.

But the point was, why do that work at all if any Eclipse implementation
would do? Why not just plug in the ALM integration over somebody else's
Eclipse-based product? Borland clearly thinks that having their own IDE is
worth the effort, even though that effort for JBuilder currently means a
substantial rearchitecturing, which for Delphi is already a sunk cost.

> > Clearly, there has
> > to be a reason that no other vendor's Java IDE would do.
>
> ALM integration...of course.

By your logic this should have been doable with a simple Eclipse plug-in
that would work with any Eclipse-based IDE. Borland apparently disagrees.

> No, they absolutely have motivation for building ALM integration into
> an IDE. But ALM integration is a far cry from the IDE itself.

And by rewriting JBuilder over Eclipse rather than just building an ALM
plug-in that would work with any Eclipse-based product, they've clearly
chosen the second course.

> Yep, but Borland was also hitting their revenue numbers. There is
> quite a difference in the way public companies react when they miss
> their earnings estimates.

Arguments based on assertions of temporary insanity are out of bounds.
Provide evidence that Borland is doing what you claim, not assertions that
it's behavior may be irrational.

> That's because they haven't reached the point of diminishing returns for
> Delphi...yet. Cash cow.

A product that hasn't reached the point of diminishing returns sounds
healthy to me. When Borland stops putting money into Delphi, I'll worry
about it, but clearly that hasn't happened yet. Read the team member's blogs
and tell me who sounds dispirited or disenchanted, because I don't see it
anywhere.

bobD



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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Delphi in the enterprise
    ... The more Borland sells their CoreSDP for .NET stuff, the better it is for MS ... teamsystem will be more profitable if the ALM ... need BDS in next 2-3 years to push into that market. ... pushing BDS as the premier IDE in their .NET CoreSDP offering is ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: Everybodys interested, but not *that* much...
    ... For years now Borland + people here have talked about the synergy ... synergy that a split can be made that is beneficial to both sides. ... creating more and better integration between IDE and ALM tools. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: Brian Moelk guesses (wrongly) that Delphi is Going to be Killed
    ... Borland is doing something for reasons that Borland insiders have already explicitly discussed to the opposite conclusion? ... The main point I made is that Borland *must* support VS.NET in their ALM strategy, so supporting BDS is additional cost. ... and not at all inconsistent with them preferring their own IDE. ... If integration was much more difficult than building your own stuff, we'd all roll our own socket libraries or GUI frameworks. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: Lino and Delphi
    ... Delphi would have to prove it even more valuable than it is today to convince big companies to add this extra layer. ... Borland is already a part of this program because Together does just that. ... Borland will build it based on eclipse, but you won´t have to install eclipse and then install the borland plugins, you would install only JBuilder XI. ... For the "Develop" part, to drop their own IDE all this can make a difference, if they didn´t have their own IDE, this could be a more appealing choice. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: What an odd move from Borland
    ... Borland has been sitting on 200+ million in cash for several years--while ... using that excess cash to acquire ALM tools. ... And because the line is profitable, the only way that selling the IDE ... that expectation. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)