Re: Borland set to sell IDE business

Ole Willy Tuv wrote:

1) The majority of the current customers are Delphi Win32 users.

Currently that is almost certainly true. So what? .Net is still in the very
early stages of adoption, I bet there are still *far* more people developing
Win32 projects with earlier versions of VS than there are using VS.Net
currently. Those numbers will change for both products.

2) Win32 software development is generally at the lower end of its
life cycle.

It's getting there but will take years. Which of course is why Delphi, to
survive, *must* pursue the platform that most Windows developers will use in
future - .Net. With .Net in place, continued Win32 support becomes an
*added* value for many developers - they'll be able to use the same product
to develop new projects and maintain older projects that will not yet, or
ever, move to .Net.

3) Chasing MS in the .NET space is a very risky investment.

Chasing MS in the DOS space was risky, Chasing MS in the Windows space was
risky. What's changed? The risk is a rather moot point when the alternative
is to have *no* product to offer to customers in future.

4) A fair portion of former Delphi developers has left Delphi in
favor of VS/C#.

Define "a fair portion". Got any numbers? There is always some "background"
migration between products, and that is not all one way. In addition, there
has admittedly been some migration away *prior to BDS2006* due to quality
issues - but those have been greatly addressed and that bleed has almost
certainly stopped now. Finally there is currently an issue of not yet having
..Net 2.0 support that is causing some to go to VS by necessity, but that to
is being addressed (yes we all wish it could be faster). Continued quality
and new features will help draw new customers, there is no reason not to
expect a net gain once DevCo gets on its own feet.

--
Wayne Niddery - Winwright, Inc (www.winwright.ca)
Working for yourself is great because you get to work half days, and
you can choose any twelve hours you want.


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