Re: So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!

Edmund wrote:
I
believe the factor is that the market is quite (for lack of a better
word) engrossed in .NET programming and thusly it would be less of
an advantage (in Borland's) view to stay on the sidelines watching
the party. They went knee deep into it, which is quite understandable.

I think Borland and Delphi needs a .NET story of some kind, but it has
to be something that *adds* to their core strength, not
replaces/supplants it.

I'm not so sure the market is engrossed with .NET any more than it was
engrossed with Windows development. If anything, I think MS' grip on
the overall development landscape has loosened as .NET has matured
rather than tightened.

Unfortunately, it further hinders Borland's ability to 'innovate'
anything while under the proverbial MS umbrella that is the .NET
framework.

Agreed 100%. MS is also moving .NET forward at a very fast pace, the
breadth and depth of which is impossible for CodeGear to match.

Now, they can't break away from the .NET platform
even if they want to. Why? The IDE is already very much a .NET IDE
such that removing the .NET part would essentially (probably)
require a rewrite(?)[I admit this is speculation and any correction
very much appreciated.]

IMO, that's not the reason why they can't break away from .NET. The IDE
AFAIK, has only a few parts that are .NET: refactoring, together and ECO.

Refactoring and Together are easy enough to replace if CodeGear is
willing to do so: Call up Gerrit at ModelMaker, cut a deal.

ECO is a more complicated situation. However there has been such a
consistent, persistent and strong demand for ECO-like functionality on
Win32, CodeGear continues to be foolish enough to ignore allocating
serious R&D resources to that end.

IOW, I don't believe the IDE is what's stopping them from breaking from
..NET. Right now, the biggest thing stopping them is their ego/pride and
fear of writing off their significant investment in .NET R&D.

I suspect they have some "big" or influential customers that are using
Delphi for .NET and they aren't willing to accept that there is no
perceived tangible/sustainable competitive advantage Delphi for .NET
offers over MS' .NET offerings. This perception has been upheld by the
Delphi communities thought leaders and third party vendors (guys from
AToZed, DevExpress, RemObjects, etc.)

I don't think they should break away 100% from .NET. What they need to
do, is support .NET differently than they have been doing.

For those doing .NET programming, it's a definite benefit to use
a familiar language (rather than use C# or whatever).

I'm with Ian on this one: it's the framework not the language. IMO, if
one's heart is really set on a Pascal flavored .NET, Delphi for .NET
isn't the best choice anyway.

Besides, measuring "benefit" is never definite. What criteria are you
using: Benefit to my resume? Benefit of seamless productivity? Benefit
of .NET runtime performance? Benefit of .NET/Win32 code compatibility?

ISTM, Delphi for .NET isn't very beneficial to my resume. C# is far better.

Is CG really that big such that they can
handle JBuilder, RAD2007, D4PHP, 3rdRail(or whatever it is
called)? [The last two are interesting concepts, but really
shouldn't have been taken as priorities over fixing CG's
core products.]

I think they are big enough; new products are necessary to grow the
business. The issue is execution.

I think CodeGear is executing much better than they have been, but I
fear in Delphi's case it's too little too late.

The overall question one has to ask is if they're executing as well as
(or better than) companies like MS, Apple, ActiveState or even 37
signals? Are they delivering a more compelling IDE than Sun has with
Netbeans (compelling enough to pay for)? Is the PHP market ready for
(or even wants) a commercial IDE and RAD methodology?

--
Brian Moelk
Brain Endeavor LLC
bmoelk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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