A case for Microsoft

I have been a Borland fan since turbo Pascal and paradox. The company that I
founded built its industry leading products on Borland technology,
specifically Delphi. On Monday (2/6/06), we made the decision to port our
flagship software to Delphi 2006 after extensive internal testing (we have
remained in D7 - the last good release of Delphi before 2006). It was a bit
of a surprise to find out on Tuesday that Borland was selling its IDE tool
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
their time on these ALM tools and spent it on Delphi, they could challenge
MS studio" and "what good are ALM tools if the programming language
underneath is not the best?"). The decision to sell the IDE products (which
have suffered due to Borland's focus on "Software Delivery Optimization") is
probably a good one, assuming the purchaser is a good fit.

Over the last few years, potential customers have often questioned our use
of Borland tools. Usually, we would win the business despite the objections
of technical reviewers on the evaluation team, who often insisted that the
software they purchased be built in MS tools only (I imagine many of you
have heard this line - followed by "is Borland still in business?"). Once
the executive and user teams saw the software in action and spoke to other
companies using the software, they realized that our solution was the best
solution bar none, even if it wasn't written in vb.net. However, this is a
constant hurdle, i.e., Why would your company use another vendor's software
to write software for MS windows/.net when MS has their own [very well
marketed] development solution? Our response was a) we use multiple tools -
including Visual Studio and Delphi, depending on the job needed (although I
confess a lot of our VS studio usage is just to address this marketing
problem - and the fact that before BDS 2006 anything .net/asp.net for
Borland was useless), b) these languages are tools - not much different than
an architect's pen (or a builder's saw) - some architects are brilliant with
a pen, while others, even with the "latest" mechanical pen, are not, and c)
our software and support is the best in the industry - which it is (a
testament to the overall greatness of Delphi developers and the fact that
Delphi was way, way ahead of its time - it was C# 10 years ago).

I wrote the paragraph above to point out two things: 1) we have significant
market pressure and internal pressure to be affiliated with Microsoft - like
it or not, 90% of the desktops are on Windows and it is going to remain that
way, 2) As a [primarily] Delphi development shop, we are using MS tools
anyway - heck, our Microsoft partnership costs us less than one copy of
BDS2006 architect, and we get 5 copies of almost all of their products - VS
studio, SQL Server, Content Management Server, Sharepoint, etc. No open
source company (or a new startup company), no matter how hungry it is, will
be able to compete with this.

From our viewpoint, Microsoft acquiring the IDEs presents a great solution
to our current challenges along with limitless opportunities for the future.
That is, if MS fully incorporates Delphi into VS studio as a 100% citizen.
If you've used D2005 or D2006 and VS Studio - you know that the IDE
environments are almost identical. A Delphi developer will be up and running
in a few minutes in VS studio with Delphi as a language. If the Delphi
development team (reunited with Anders!) actually had some resources
dedicated to it, the results would be amazing (think D2006 instead of D8
back in 2003 - with support for CF).

Would MS be interested? They should be. First, this immediately gives MS a
solution to their biggest criticism from current and potential developers: a
way to have a single code base for native and .net applications. Second,
there are still a couple hundred thousand ravenously loyal Delphi developers
out there - and they spend money - so MS gets more customers, more money,
and more loyal community members. Third, this prevents another tool
company/startup/open source from providing a valid alternative to MS.
Fourth, Delphi has tons of great technology that MS could leverage to
improve their current development tools. Fifth, they already have the
instracture in place (e.g., MSDN) to easily provide great developer support.
Finally, the greatest ingenuity from MS in the last 5 years, at least in
terms of IDE and software languages, is the direct result of MS recruiting
talented Borland employees (Anders, Blake, etc.) and giving them the
resources they need. Imagine if they got the whole development team - their
talent and commitment.

Other potential buyers? Google - why? Why would they want compete with MS
here, where MS has such a better foundation. And, being from Google, MS may
put extra effort into squashing it. Apple? Why? so we can write programs for
9% of the desktops out there? Again, why would apple want to start competing
with MS in this space anyway. Open source? That would be the death of Delphi
and the company that buys it - look at how much time and effort Sun has
spent on making java an open source product - they are just about out of
business as a result. Look at how JBuilder has been "eclipsed." The Borland
IDE business is just that - a business that needs to make money.

If MS purchases Borland's IDE product line, all share holders win,
especially Borland customers. Borland IDE employees get the resources they
need to continue to create the best products; Borland share holders get a
good sized check (Bill can pay for this with the interest earned in one
month on his cash); Microsoft gets great technology, great people, loyal
customers; Microsoft developers get new state of the art products that can
create native and .net code (Delphi, c++) - (what about jbuilder - MS might
squash it - Maybe Borland should sell this IDE to another group - although
with a free alternative, its market value may be limited)). And what to
Borland customers get (I think David I said this was the main determining
factor)? We get to continue to use the product that we love - albeit a
better product from a rock solid marketing machine.

Just some thoughts. I write this because my company's future (and our
employees and customers) will be greatly affected by this decision. Hence my
case for Microsoft.


.

Relevant Pages

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