Re: Delphi and the ALM vision?

"Nick Hodges [TeamB]" wrote

> is premised on the fact that Borland management doesn't "get"
> Delphi and doesn't understand how to sell it, and whom to sell it to.

Several issues there. As I said to Dennis, Borland seems to be able to sell
to the base fairly consistently without much marketing effort at all, as
long as the quality is there and the features keep advancing. But:

a. There's a feature issue of diminishing returns: with the exception of the
platform shifts (win16/win32/.NET), each new version of Delphi just stands
higher on the shoulders of its predecessors, and it becomes that much harder
to add that new killer feature that makes people grab for their plastic. The
problem with serving the same customers continually is that eventually they
just get satisfied and stop buying.

b. Let's assume that "whom to sell it to" includes a few hobbyists, and
mostly consists of independent contractors and small shops (ICs&SSs). What
kind of market penetration does Delphi have among such places already?
Assuming they did advertise aggressively to that 'natural' Delphi base, how
much of an increase would they get?

c. Without any offense to your or my sagacity with a penny, the 'natural
base' is, for better or worse, the most cost-conscious sector of the market,
and the least profitable to sell to--we both see the posts all the time of
people who pine for TP @ $49 a seat.

d. That last point isn't helped by the fact that MS can afford to sell VS
for about any price it wants, and seeding amateurs and students with VS
habits has always been an MS strategy. Nor is it helped by all the free
tools. Borland use comes at a premium that really can't be helped.

So we have a maturing product, a saturated market, cheap customers, and
competitive price pressure. How would you suggest Borland market Delphi, and
to whom? Who should Borland market it to that doesn't already buy it?

> I'm not sure that ALM is really an issue, /other/ than the fact that
> Borland Management appears to have left Delphi out of their ALM
> equation.

I'm still not convinced of that. I attribute the rebirth of BC at least
partly to the ALM strategy.

> seem to understand what they have in Delphi because it doesn't
> fit into the "Java World View" model of things.

Still not sure I agree. Could it be that Borland knows very well where it's
base is, but for the reasons I've listed above believes it must spend its
marketing dollars elsewhere? Why should they bother marketing to you or
me--we _know_ what Delphi's about already.

> unable to understand that Delphi can be part of an ALM stack, but
> that it's target market is different than the Java target market.

If you mean the ICs&SSs, then there are three problems:

a. I don't see any greater demand for ALM than I do for 64bit. Sure,
eventually, but who's clamoring for it now?

b. ALM is way more than source control--but much of it deals with
information management and coordination issues that just don't hurt that
much with ICs&SSs. Fortune 500s may be willing to pay a fortune to make sure
that the business analyst, architect, coder, tester, and documentor all
agree--but if I'm filling all 5 roles, it really doesn't take a couple of
grand worth of software to come to agreement.

c. Given b., it's obvious too that unnecessary acquisition expense is not
the only issue--software complexity is a barrier as well. ALM tools are
still way too complex for ICs&SSs to bother with learning. I don't think the
software is ready to be sold in that market.

Bottm line--if Borland is leading with ALM on Java to Enterprises, rather
than banking on selling initially to Delphi ICs&SSs, is that really an
indicaton that they don't know their customers, or that they do? Leading to
the F500 is an acknowledgement of that has always been true: the high end
pays for the R&D, and the low end gets it cheaply later.

bobD


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