Totally Juiced Up!
Well, if you haven’t heard the news yet, you probably want to read this:
Embarcadero Technologies® to Acquire CodeGear™ from Borland Software
There is also an FAQ, Customer letter from Wayne Williams, the CEO of Embarcadero Technologies, as well as a Community Letter from David I.
For a view from the Embarcadero side of things, you can read this blog post from Greg Keller, the Products Manager at Embarcadero.
Go ahead and read all that stuff. I’ll wait.
<finger strumming>
Done? Great. And now, I have to tell you, I am thrilled with this. Totally thrilled. Seriously. It is hard for me to conceive of a non-fantasy based outcome for us, the products, and our customers that could have been better. Merging into Embarcadero Technologies is going to be awesome. I’m already thinking up new products, combinations and SKUing that is really, really exciting. If you haven’t taken a look at the Embarcadero product line up, please do. There is some seriously cool stuff there. All of the products are database-neutral, just like us. All of them are developer tools.
The cool part is that the Embarcadero product line is completely complementary to Delphi. Delphi’s bread an butter has always been client/server development with rich, powerful Windows interfaces. Database access has always been a key and valuable part of the product, but we never really ventured over the world of database design and management. Where Delphi lets off, tools like Rapid SQL and ER Studio start.
And a word for you guys who don’t care about databases and don’t know a SELECT statement from a hole in the wall. Delphi still is and will continue to be the tool of choice for you. How could it not be? We’ve got some really cool stuff on our roadmap for this year including VCL enhancements, language enhancements like Generics and Anonymous Methods, as well as Unicode development that will continue to make Delphi the best development tool in the world. If database isn’t your thing, we still have you covered like we always have. Not to worry. It’s me, remember? 
Okay, enough for now. No doubt this will be a topic for a while, eh?
I see potential here, and less of the sky falling, that said, I wish people would stop using the word "synergy" - as in "After the synergy gets you" (Wally from Dilbert).
Its great the behind Embarcadero is a private investment firm, however, I wish this felt less like an echo of the ALM purchases Borland made.
That said, getting away from Borland management is a good thing, and its hard to see a firm that has been as successful as Embarcadero pulling some of the same boneheaded decissions. The private ownership might even make that a lock.
Looking forward to see where this goes. (hopefully the prioritization of Linq like technologies in the win32 world!)
May 7th, 2008 at 4:21 pmI’m glad that you’re all thrilled, that’s a good sign, I guess, and hope for the best. Congrats.
Still am waiting for the Tiburon to upgrade.
And a question, as I’m in EMEA (Croatia), what will happen to Borland resellers, who do I turn to to buy Tiburon when the time comes?
All the best to you and your team.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:31 pmClinton –
For the record, my post did not include the word "synergy".
And as a second point: Embarcadero is most decidedly not an "ALM Company".
Nick
May 7th, 2008 at 4:57 pmI like the enthusiasm. And I love databases. Somebody has to. Sounds cool.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:05 pmTo really make us feel better have the CEO use the words "Delphi and C++ builder". Let’s don’t forge C++ Builder in all this hysteria.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:20 pmi’m a little concerned now….he (the CEO) misspelled "complimentary" all 3 times in that letter to all his customers. "automate error-prone tasks". MS Word has automated error prone tasks….and it didn’t work in that most important letter! come on now…. LOL! …and $100MM ??
May 7th, 2008 at 6:52 pmGreg Keller’s blog says all the right things, in the right way, except for the need for some proofreading. Even though I am employed making shrink-wrapped software that has no database back-end, I think this whole Embarcadero thing could be very good in the long haul, because it has the real potential to ensure a good future for Delphi, by making the high-end versions very attractive to enterprises finally. The mind boggles at the possibility of a high-end Delphi that integrates things like ER/Studio directly into the IDE with native code generation for multiple platforms.
My personal software projects (newsreader, then email program) will stay in Delphi indefinitely, so I am looking forward to Unicode and eventually a cross-platform Delphi. Maybe Embarcadero is exactly the right overlords to make this finally happen. Some of us have very high hopes, don’t let us down!
May 7th, 2008 at 8:11 pmAlso, since Greg Keller is located in Boulder, any chance that you or any of the other Borlanders will be out this way any time soon? It would be uber-cool to get together for lunch or something if possible.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:14 pm"he (the CEO) misspelled "complimentary" all 3 times in that letter to all his customers"
His use of "complementary" is correct in this context.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:27 pmThis may be good, but doesn’t sound like. I’m a developer and currently working on a project, which I had to argue very hard to use delphi as the primary coding language (apart from some c’dlls) - "delphi? what company?" - "Codegear. Former Borland" - "Borland? You mean Inprise or what?" - "no. now Codegear. Sorry. now "Embargo" (or something like that)". Very hard to argue. Looks like I’m lost on the next project (i’ll guess it will be c# then).
May 7th, 2008 at 11:33 pmIt’ll be interesting to see how the next few months unfold. You’ll decide what you are going to do, here’s what I wouldn’t do.
1) Don’t radically deviate from the existing roadmap. Deliver on the existing promises before moving on. Commodore…
2) Don’t loose the focus on Micros ISV’s
3) Don’t forget the products that made you and sustained you through the evolving Borland ALM beast.
4). Don’t let quality suffer at the expense of shiny new products and features.
In a nutshell, make sure you keep SKU’s relevant to the existing customer base and not simply shoot off after the pot of gold at the end of the Embarcadero enterprise rainbow.
Good luck.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:46 pmWhat now is "Made in Borland"?
Some lines of Shelley come to mind:
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
May 8th, 2008 at 3:24 amOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
How about a "Delphi Hour Special" with CodeGear and Embarcadero people discussing how you see the company moving forward?
May 8th, 2008 at 7:22 amNick -> True, but darn near everyone has, and I’ll even grant that 1+1=3 IS indeed the actual concept of synergy (rare to see that people actually know it!) still, business buzz words…
As to everyone else asking for forward looking comments. I’m gonna take a wild shot in the dark and say that CodeGear is going to continue avoiding them as long as they are Borland property. After the deal is finalized and everyone starts getting new business cards - then, then we’ll regime change brings us.
May 8th, 2008 at 7:46 amOh Dear !!
All those glowing words, but just what IS the King wearing?
And at the end of the statement, something which looks alarmingly like - ‘we made most of this up’ –
Statements made in this release that are not historical facts are “forward-looking statements”
and accordingly involve risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ
materially from those described in this release.
I have grown to like Delphi and really really hope that isn’t a death knell I hear tolling in the background. Lets hope these guys learn the lessons Boreland seemed to ignore.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:32 am@DerekSmith:
The disclaimer at the end of the press release is simply legal boilerplate that pretty much any press release from a public company requires - it’s basically saying, "regardless of what we say in this PR, the stock price might still go down".
May 8th, 2008 at 9:02 amThis is excellent news! It is an acceptable alternative to my drean of Phillipe Khan returning to save the day.
May Borland die an even slower death trying to feed itself on ALM. What a joke! No one is making any money in that space. It has been plagued by empty promises and acquired technology.
I can defintely see the fit with Embarcadero Technologies. Please do not loose focus on ISVs!!! We have no other tool. We do not even exist in Microsoft’s eyes.
I have been defending this platform since Turbo Pascal 1.0. I stuck with this tool because it has never failed me.
Ii think you should move cross-platform development higher up on the roadmap. Having a real develpoment tool for the Mac platform would give you a huge lead over all other development companies.
Good luck to you guys, and please give us more information as soon as you are free to speak about the ugly situation you are leavings.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:46 amDan –
Don’t worry: ISV’s are a critical and important part of our customer base.
Nick
May 8th, 2008 at 11:09 amInteresting thing is that this development company don’t know anything about relations with developers. One time we were just informad about spinoff, now about final buyout. And no one understands that each of this silly moves results in new dubts in your user base.
As for Embarcadero - it is one of the worst that I can imagine.
As it solves no real Codegear problems.
First problem. Inability to focus on key products. Leave Delphi and C++ Builder. Forget this PHP, Eclipse and Ruby games.
Second problem. Delphi is not database development tool by nature, it unfortunately become one. Database development tools are niche products and this is very populated niche
And I don’t like ERStudio, really hate it.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:17 pmI’m fan of Delphi since the 1.0 version. I truly hope this can help take it to the next level. Here is a list of some things I would love to see in future Delphi releases:
- Cross-compiling (Windows/Mac OS X/Ubuntu, etc)
- Enhanced speed and stability
- 64-bit compiler
- Native XML parsing
- Alternative HTML engine components (Mozilla/Safari)
Good luck guys!
May 8th, 2008 at 8:33 pm@Mark:
Now, you can use the Mozilla Firefox ActiveX control. Read how at http://www.paranoia.clara.net/articles/taming_the_lizard_with_delphi.html
May 8th, 2008 at 10:28 pm>Don’t worry: ISV’s are a critical and important part of our customer base
Great!
"fix" QC#21729 and prove it.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:51 amYour enthusiasm gives me confidence. I work for a small company and have converted three small companies from Microsoft shops to Delphi shops through the demonstrable strength of the Delphi product over the negativity and marketing hype from the evil empire.
As someone who has been a huge supporter since Turbo Pascal v1 days I wish you guys the best of luck and hope that you keep standing up for the interests of long time users who have a considerable investment of time, money, and credibility in your products.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:43 pmThe first response I read this entry is NOW WHAT?
*Sigh*
Whatever happen to Delphi, I will use it as long as possible. But I keep learning new technologies like C# and Java. I think it is not wise just depending on one super tool / language.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:28 amNick, I asked probably 3 times in forums and other places. But when Delphi 2008 will be finally released. Will it support fully Unicode (VCL, database layer and others) as it was promised. I hope this purchase of CodeGear by Embarcadero will not shift Delphi 2008 release date. Do you have any information about planned release date?
May 13th, 2008 at 4:49 amRoman –
The next version of Delphi is due in the second half of 2008.
You can read our roadmap at:
http://dn.codegear.com/article/36620
Nick
May 13th, 2008 at 7:26 amNick. Thank you for the link about the roadmap. I was searching for it a couple of days ago but I could not locate it by myself.
Sorry for insisting with this offtopic, but do you have any more concrete time term: is it going be middle or end of 2008? Or maybe you may give a moth: September, November etc? I know that you may always change the release date. But what is the current estimation of the release date? In which month will it be released? We have a lot of customers asking us for Unicode support since a long time. So we are in a middle of the road right now: should we use third-party Unicode controls right now or should be wait until CodeGear releases Delphi 2008. With fist case we will have to do a double work: the fist we will integrate thirdparty Unicode controls, then after release of D2008 we should remove the controls and integrate native VCL controls. I always prefer to use native (original) VCL controls instead of thirdparty controls whenever it’s possible. So I am waiting now for release of D2008.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:20 amRoman –
"Second half of 2008" is the best I can do. I can’t be more specific than that.
Nick
May 13th, 2008 at 12:51 pm