Re: Borland interview on ALM - why am I not surprised?
- From: "Brian Moelk" <bmoelk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 12:49:41 -0400
> One good thing that comes out of this article is it is firmly indicating
> that IDEs and developers are an integral and necessary part of the entire
> ALM vision (and in fact, ALM is built around it) - contrary to the
> insistence of many here that they are inherently different things and
> therefore Borland will eject IDEs altogether and "only" do ALM. I consider
> that progress, it is now only a matter of including *all* of their IDEs in
> this explicitly.
I read conflicting statements in this regard, and it's important to note
that they are only talking about *IDEs* and not Delphi the language,
compiler or the VCL.
First Arnold says:
"For a long time we were an IDE company, and I think our focus on the
developer has aged. What we've grown up into is a view that developers are
only as good as the teams around them. Helping make developers productive as
members of a team is the way we are evolving our focus as a company, and
that's what we have to do to solve this broader problem. "
To me, this sounds like they are not going to focus on the developer in the
same way, but rather their role in a team. ISTM, this is a pure ALM play,
independent of an IDE. Especially in the context of moving JBuilder to
Eclipse, I see this as producing value-adds for existing IDEs to support ALM
tools.
Then Jackson says:
"An important distinction to make is that ALM can probably encompass what we
traditionally refer to as the market segment of IDE. You have to have the
developer role and the development process in the application lifecycle. So
rather than take it and treat it as a standalone IDE business, the strategy
that we've been executing around it is to move that into the rest of the ALM
solution. JBuilder is moving toward Eclipse as the foundation for our ALM
product suite. We think of it as a developer role that we're supporting in
the application lifecycle. You really see that a traditional IDE stream
merges in with ALM and then we take that whole thing forward. "
Now it seems they are acknowledging the IDE as an important part of the ALM
vision. But again, what they are talking about here is the IDE, not
compiler technology or any kind of unique technology produced by Borland to
make developers more productive.
The key question still remains: Does building their own IDE core provide a
strategic advantage in the context of ALM? What about their own compiler
technology?
Arnold:
"That's one thing that differentiates us from the other companies that work
from a top-down perspective. As a partner with the developer, we start at
the code and work our way up, and we do that in a way that is cognitive of
the types of decisions that need to be made by people managing projects and
working with budgets, but we do it with the full knowledge of the
developers' DNA. "
This is promising, however it doesn't say that they will continue to
push/develop technologies for developers. Regardless, I hope they really do
mean what they say here. This is where having their own IDE/compiler
technology does make a difference.
Arnold closes with:
"We needed not only to buy the technology but also to understand how to help
our customers do it and do it right, and then how we needed to transform our
technology to support doing it right. This is unique because we're
approaching this problem from a process point of view, as a primary vector,
and then how the technology enables the monitoring and management. You get
the right information and you get the processing set up right, and then you
get the technology to make it more proficient and capable.
And that's different from the Borland approach years ago: selling the
technology through the channels such as developers. "
So it seems that what they will sell will be an ALM stack that may/will
include an IDE, but not be sold through the channel for individual
developers. Say goodbye to the small shops.
--
Brian Moelk
bmoelk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.brainendeavor.com
.
- References:
- Borland interview on ALM - why am I not surprised?
- From: Brion L. Webster
- Re: Borland interview on ALM - why am I not surprised?
- From: Wayne Niddery [TeamB]
- Borland interview on ALM - why am I not surprised?
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