The acquisition spotlight fell on Microsoft Corp yesterday, as speculation swept Wall St that the company was moving against Borland
Software Corp as well as Rational Software Corp to revive its application design and modeling offerings.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft was reported to be preparing the acquisition of its number-one competitor in the Windows developer
space, Borland. Boland itself recently bought design and modeling specialist TogetherSoft SA.
Such a deal would provide Microsoft access to TogetherSoft's resources, after IBM announced its proposed $2.1bn acquisition of independent
application design and modeling specialist Lexington, Massachusets-based Rational Software earlier this month. [...]
A Microsoft source [...] refused to comment on a possible Borland acquisition.
This week, Borland has finished work on their latest release of their flagship multi-platform RAD development tool,
Delphi - Version 7 - called Borland Delphi 7 Studio!
Delphi 7 was designed for application development from concept to production - now even faster with
Model Driven Architecture and UML visual design features. You can build dynamic Web applications quickly
and easily with RAD visual server-side Web application development. It includes Rave Reports and Model Maker
(a modeling/case tool), supports Windows XP Themes and allows to create Web services applications.
The "Companion CD" included with Delphi 7 will come with more than 200 useful components and Tools for Delphi 7,
now also including a ready-to-use RX library version (2.75 from Project JEDI) and other good stuff like
GExperts v1.12, the JEDI API Library and more.
The best of all: you can deploy to Windows or Linux - Delphi 7 Studio includes a full version of Borland Kylix (Version 3),
the "#1 development environment for Linux" (Borland). Also, it provides the migration path to Microsoft .NET
that developers have been waiting for.
Kylix (Delphi for Linux) and Delphi 6 on the way
Borland just started a survey to find out more about your use of Delphi:
to improve it as a development tool, but also to focus Kylix development on things you want and need.
Take your chance to to make your voice heard and participate!
Additionally, you can help Borland to find out about your VCL useage by allowing the VCL Scanner
to analyze the classes and components you typically use in your applications.
Borland really suprised when publishing an invitation to VB users
to take an 'easy' way to Linux: by converting to Delphi! ;-D
After all, the idea for this campaign
was acclaimed by most Delphi developers, since Delphi really needs good and creative marketing to give it the attention it
deserves...
More stuff about it:
Kylix / Delphi for Linux
VBforLinux.com ;-)
Delphi for Linux (which was given the codenname Kylix) is scheduled to be
released winter 2000! An Alpha version of the command line compiler already
has been finished so there are good chances this schedule will hold.
Kylix will also integrate Java and C++ - code everything within one IDE, isn't
that cool?
Michael Swindell, Group Product Manager at Inprise said that Borland is intending
to set the pace and standard for professional Linux development. In a newsgroup
posting in February, he suggested developers to avoid plain API programming wherever
possible to make their products ready for the new (and all of us hope: strong and healthy ;)
child in the growing family of Borland's development tools:
"We're still quite a ways off from being able to really make recommendations, but
I can certainly appreciate the value of that info. The main point I had in mind
regarding the WinAPI was that we aren't going to be implementing or leveraging a
WinAPI on Linux. So that level of API compatibility isn't planned to be there.
That certainly isn't a call to avoid the WinAPI today, it's just a clarification
that we aren't going in that direction and don't intend to maintain WinAPI
compatibility." See the "Prepare for Kylix" article mentioned below for details.
Swindell told that additional compatibility guidelines will regularely be posted at the community website (links: see below).
More Kylix-related news have been revealed by Charles Jazdzewski (Delphi Chief Architect) on the
Orange County Delphi User Group Developers Conference recently, as told by Steven Dente:
"...he gave a presentation on Kylyx and Delphi 6. He did not give any dates for either
but said Kylyx would be released this year and Delphi 6 after that. From the general tone
I would say very late this year or early next year. He did show a lot of information about
changes to expect. There are many and they are significant, here are some examples:
- new unit names throughout. Functions and procedures have been moved in many units.
- at least two new compiler Directives to do with platforms.
- there is a new, alternative crossplatform VCL, CLX (pronounced "Clicks").
There will be:
- vCLX - visual controls
- dbCLX database controls
- vdbCLX visual database controls
- etc.
- new extension for dfm (replacement unknown at this time)
- Data access will change greatly to something called SQLExpress. Drivers
will have to be written for most databases. At least one will ship with the
product, others will have to be obtained from third parties. He made it
sound like they have gone to great lengths to make this easy. He said these
drivers could be written in weeks not months.
- a lot of improvement in WebBroker mostly to do with state and session management.
- big shift to the use of Actions. He suggested that we start using Actions heavily now because the benifits in the future would be large.
- new methods for parsing Path and File information and strings to handle the different platforms.
- more support for Win2000 features in Delphi 6 (will propably be released after Kylix)
- Charles was unable to demonstrate Kylyx. Seems he had just gotten a new laptop and was unable to get Linux installed and running. So much for the ease of intallation issues being handled. He did write a small demo using the new cross platform units and it worked great in Windows and he said would have run the same on Linux.
- Another interesting comment was made regarding being limited to the Intel chip. Apparently there is a project underway to change that in the not too distant future but as this is an unannounced effort at this time no details were given.
- much much more. To me it looks like a big sea change and learning curve is comming but all in all it should be worth it. On a very positive note he said that there has been a huge increase in interest and purchases for Delphi. He believes this is due to interest created by the Kylx project. The future is looking very good for both Delphi and Borland."
Related pages:
Go Kylix!
On January 3, 2000, Inprise Corporation announced that it plans to jump to the forefront
of the Linux database market by open-sourcing InterBase 6, the new version of its cross-platform
SQL database. Inprise plans to release InterBase in open-source form for multiple platforms,
including Linux, Windows NT, and Solaris. Since 26-Jul, Interbase 6 is ready for download!
More details can be found here:
Inprise Corporation today announced that Ericsson has selected VisiBroker CORBA technology
as a key part of its Operation Support System (OSS). Inprise's industry-standard Object
Request Broker will form the basis of the future architecture within Ericsson's OSS
products for managing both GSM networks and forthcoming broadband CDMA networks.
For details, please visit the press release of Inprise.
The Delphi 5 Update Pack is available for download!
Find links to the appropriate download pages listed at my Delphi Updates and Patches page.
Downloadable filesizes are 19 MB (Standard), 26 MB (Professional) or 29 MB (Enterprise).
For details, please visit the Community
oder the Borland website.
Picture: Anders Heijsberg (one of Delphi's "midwifes" who has left
Borland to join Micro$oft .. now plugging for Borland again! ;-)
"CruzF" posted the following tips to increase Delphi's popularity. Since at least some
of them are really good and worth to think about, I've decided to list them here.
By the way - have you already joined Borland's "Stick it!" campaign?
Read details about it here
and click here
to see some of the results sent to Borland so far...
But now, check out the "10 ways to increase Delphi success" ...:
- Raise your standard - if you are fortunate enough to have a job writing Delphi programs, then make the effort to write better, more polished applications. So what if your boss is a block-head? A well written Delphi application speaks for itself.
- Get involved - participate in the Delphi community. come to the news group and offer advice or just complaining. Remember: structured complaining can change the world. People have been begging for a LINUX version of Delphi for over 3 years on these new groups. And now, thanks to people like Dale, we are finally going to see it. Send in code samples. Help others debug there's. Are you an expert in engineering software? Write a great tutorial for the rest of us. The list goes on...
- Evangelize - tell people about Delphi when ever you get the chance. Some will fall over laughing, but others will listen.
- Build a case - start collecting articles and information about the benefits of Delphi to share with others when the occasion presents itself. Have you looked at the case studies?
- Integrate - find ways to integrate Delphi into the main stream of solutions you may be working on. Are you working in ASP? Use Delphi to write server components. ISAPI dll's are easy to implement in Delphi. COM and dll's open up a whole new world of possibilities.
- Network - while your busy getting involved, make some contacts you can call on when you need a bit of advice.
- Research and develop - take the time to experiment with Delphi. Try out new things. Expand your horizons. Learn a new language like Java. Buy yourself a copy of JBuilder and start learning it. Why? Learning another language can often give you insights into the principal language you work with. Plus, it wouldn't hurt to know Java as well as Delphi.
- Improve your skills - having trouble writing that killer app? Maybe you need to sharpen your skills. We could all benefit from reading the latest OOP books or some of the great Delphi literature from Cantu, Calvert, Texeira, Pacheco, Lischner and others. Study the VCL. It's not perfect, but it is full of great examples of advanced uses for Delphi.
- Collaborate - people talk about open source, but few fully understand the implications. It is a nice buzz word, but what does it really mean? It means people who love to program working together for the shear thrill of the accomplishment. This is what built LINUX and Apache in the first place. Find programmers who share similar interests and work with them on a common project. We could sure use some great case tools for Delphi. How about a killer financial application or a web app. How many successful development companies began with just a couple of programmers who had a great idea?
- Buy it - Put your money where your mouth is. If you haven't upgraded in a while why not consider Delphi 5? ADO, IB Express, Frames, better debugging etc... - good features that increase productivity.
Inprise/Borland Corporation yesterday announced that its merger agreement with Corel Corporation
has been terminated by mutual agreement of the two companies without payment of any termination fees.
The reciprocal stock option agreements have also been terminated.
[more info]
These were the news of the recent months:
Corel Corporation and Inprise/Borland Corporation announced in New York,
that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement. Upon completion of the merger,
the combined organization, called Corel, will be a Linux powerhouse, offering a single
source for end-to-end solutions featuring a range of productivity applications,
development tools, and professional services for all major platforms. The valuation
for the entire transaction is approximately US$2.44 billion.
According to the news provided, Delphi may play an important rule in the strategy
of the strenghtened company: "..the Delphi tool will enable software written for Windows
to be moved to Linux..", Dave Fuller (Inprise CEO) said.
Read the details:
The official press release
Corel, Inprise see greener pastures Linux-way ..
Corel Linux OS Desktop to Access and Run Windows apps ..
Corel To Buy Inprise/Borland For Linux Boost ..
Corel, Inprise in $2.44 billion merger ..
Corel, Inprise bet on Linux tide change
Technology Drove Corel-Inprise Merger Derek Burney (CTO of Corel Corp.) talks about the merger
Corel plus Borland plus Linux - is this the big one?
A Commitment to Open Standards and Multiple Platforms.
Power to the Client Dale Fuller talks about the merger.
something about former Inprise director Coates
something about his recent suit against Inprise
and finally (has a list too over what announcements withhold until merger):
KillTheDeal.com
SaveBorl.com
Deal terminated:
Inprise/Borland press release about the terminated merger
Inprise Corp. will announce this week that it plans to distribute version 5.5 of
its Borland C++ compiler, along with associated command-line tools, free via the Web.
This seems to be another step showing the new Linux philosophy/strategy of Inprise - just
see how their current website portal looks like!.. :)
More details can be found here:
- BorCon '99 will take place at the Brisbane Sheraton in Queensland from
Sat., 13th - Tue., 16th November 1999. For details, please click
here.
- Inprise Corporation has begun planning for the 11th Annual Inprise &
Borland Conference to be held in San Diego California, Jul 8-12, 2000.
Click here if you are interested in more information.
- Inprise will establishing a Worldwide Customer Support Group with
three major support centers around the globe in: Scotts Valley, USA;
Singapore; and now also Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It will operate as a
separate entity from the PSO in order to ensure that customers have access
to a dedicated expert resource at all times. Charles Odinot will head up the European operations.
For details, please visit the Inprise website.
After months of beta-testing and adding content, Borland finally officially announced
the Borland Community website these days.
If you didn't already, you definitely must check it out. It doesn't only provide high-quality
development-related articles covering technologies, news and generic questions of interest
for today's developers (new articles will be released every 5-7 days), but also
has interesting sections like the finally official release of the CodeCentral,
the "Borland museum" where you can find pearls like the good-old Turbo Pascal and other
stuff for free, surveys, the "Bug-Tracking Pages" for Delphi and other stuff.
J.D. Hildebrand will be the "content czar" of the community site. He brings 20 years
of experience in editorial management and will be working with a team of over 15 journalists
- programming experts from five continents - to develop the daily Developer News content on
the pages.
From time to time, Borland offers online chats with the Delphi Development
team or other staff members to stay in contact with the Delphi community.
Chats are your opportunity to chat with the Delphi Team! Give them your
feedback and get your technical questions answered.
Click one of the following links to find transcripts of recent chats or informations about upcoming ones:
Note: chats are scheduled in PDT (Pacific daylight time). For the current
PDT, please click here.
As of 1st August 1999, QBS Software Ltd have
taken over the worldwide distribution, electronic and physical, of QuSoft's
product QuickReport Professional.
In an email to the DELPHI-BOX, Skye Quin from QBS Software told that they
intend to be more than just a reseller for QuickReports - they plan to work with
Allan Lochert (the "brain" behind QR) at QuSoft to improve the product.
To start they have just completed a manual for QuickReport 3.05. This is
or will soon be available as a download from the QuSoft website (see link above).
They will also make QuickReport available through a number of local resellers
worldwide.
We hope that the intentions of QBS will free up QuSoft's resources to speed up
further improvements on this basically great and flexible reporting tool.
According to an IT-Director article, Borland plans to port most - if not all - development
products to Linux in the near future. Delphi is now officially part of these plans,
and Borland still offers positions within the related development team.
[read more..]
Related pages:
Delphi 5 is comin' at ya..
The new Delphi 5 (which will ship in mid-August 1999) will bring hot features like
ADO support (no BDE required anymore!), XML support, HTML 4 (create ultra-thin clients) support,
will include Interbase Express, the new "TeamSource" feature will increase team development
flexibility, the included Translation Suite will ease product localizations
and other nice things like the ability to hide seldom used properties from the object inspector.
Tip: latest information and rumors can usually be found in Brad's
Delphi 5 pages, linked from my "Delphi Tips" page.
And finally, here already some links to Beta reviews and press releases:
btw., obviously, the rumors were wrong: Delphi 5 will not be named Delphi 7 ;) ..
During the last days, some very talented people have sent me new "Powered By Delphi"
button creations - you should definitely check them out.
Finally, Borland now officially supports the "Powered By Delphi" campaign -
can you believe it? They also have created a new button (which is of course also
included in the "Powered By Delphi" button collection now), check out their
support page if you like.
"Why use such a button in my application?" you might ask. Well, for me I can say
that I'm happy to let other people know what development platform I use (except QR). I'm happy
to encourage other people to take up Delphi - and I believe it is good for our favorite
development tool if IT managers and the "managers" see which nice and powerful
applications are possible under this environment. ;-)
Another reason is that I simply like it more to see a "Powered By Delphi" button in an
"About" box than some M$ advertising ...
You can get the complete package at my Download page.
Find more information about this topic down on this page.
Charlie Calvert, well-known Delphi book author and responsible for Borland
Developer relations, recently released the following statement concerning the
deal between Microsoft and Inprise:
"I've heard a number of people worrying about this new announcement between
Microsoft and Borland/Inprise.
I just thought it might help if someone who's been here at Borland for
awhile posted a few statements that might help clear up some rumors.
First off, this deal has little to no impact on Delphi R&D. There is some
chance that we will get a little more information from MS as a result of
this deal, but otherwise there is no connection between the deal and Delphi
R&D. We have always tried to support Microsoft technologies in Delphi, and
we will continue to do so. Hopefully this deal will make it easier for us to
get information from MS, but there is no other impact on the team or on our
future plans for Delphi.
We are not changing any plans for R&D as a result of this deal, other than
perhaps adding more engineers since we have more money. If we were planning
on supporting other platforms than Windows, then we are still planning to do
that. For instance, we have announced that JBuilder will run on Solaris. We
are still going to have a JBuilder for Solaris. This deal with Microsoft is
not changing our plans for other platforms in any way.
In general, it is good if Microsoft and Borland get along. I know some
people don't like Microsoft tools, but I am not one of those people. I am
happy to work with Microsoft so that we can make our tools better. Delphi is
a Windows based tool, so if we have better support for Windows, then Delphi
is better. JBuilder is not a Windows based tool, and so it has a different
agenda. There is nothing in this deal with Microsoft that will affect the
way we work with JBuilder. JBuilder will continue to be a Java based tool
which supports the Java VM, not some Microsoft agenda.
In short, this deal with Microsoft aids us in many ways, and does us no
harm. Microsoft will not end up dictating anything that we do here at
Borland. If you knew Dale Fuller at all, you would realize that there is no
way anything like that is going to happen. We are a separate company from
Microsoft, and will remain independant from them in every sense."
- Charlie Calvert
Borland Developer Relations
Microsoft and Inprise announced the completion of a set of strategic
technology and licensing agreements that will be the foundation for a long-term
alliance between the two companies. The announcement includes a $25 million purchase
by Microsoft of shares of Inprise preferred stock.
Detailled information can be found at Inprises' official
press release
as well as in some news articles I've listed on this page.
Borland today announced JBuilder 3, which is planned to be available on multiple platforms:
first, on Microsoft Windows, which is planned to be available in May; second, on
Solaris, which is planned to be available before the end of the calendar
year; and third, on Linux *), which is planned to be available following the
Solaris platform release. ...."
More information can be found here:
*) Pascal->Linux ports are listed on our Delphi Tools page.
On 12-Apr-99, Inprise announced Dale Fuller, the former Apple and WhoWhere
executive, as the new CEO of the company.
Delbert W. Yocam resigned abruptly on March 31 as the company's chairman of the board
and Chief Executive Officer. In addition, Kathleen Fisher has resigned as the company's
vice president and Chief Financial Officer.
More information can be found here:
The Borland JEDI Initiative is a collaborative effort between Delphi R&D and
the Delphi programming community. The goal of the initiative is to solicit
code from third parties for inclusion on the Borland web site or on the
Delphi product CD itself. In particular, the Borland JEDI initiative is a
coorperative program between Borland Delphi R&D, CBuilder R&D, Developer
Relations and Project JEDI.
Here you can
read about this program, and a specification for developing Pascal header
translations of C/C++ headers is available here.
The Project JEDI URL is as follows: http://www.delphi-jedi.org/.
This is a very promising program, and Borland is very excited about participating in it.
(released by Charlie Calvert, Borland Developer Relations)
Both the Delphi 4 Update Pack 3 and the BDE 5.01 (second release) upgrade
install are available for download. Find links to the appropriate download pages listed at my
Delphi Updates and Patches page.
Note that the Delphi 4.03 *) update is not be a cumulative update, so you have to upgrade to 4.02
first - this time, filesize is just be about 3-5 MB (depending if you have
Delphi Std./Prof./CS) ! The BDE install is a full upgrade and will cover 12 MB on your PC. =:-)
French and German versions are also available since 26-Mar-99!
*) The Delphi 4 Patch #3 displays "Version 4.0 (Build 5.108)" in your "About" box,
just to prevent any confusion.
There have been many complaints regarding poor documentation and missing coding examples
for many problems which arise during a typical developer's career since the beginning of
Delphi ... but now this time could be over: the CodeCentral
has been set up at Borland.com, which was designed to grow to a database with examples
for every level of developer, for every tool Borland has. Let's talk John Kaster,
Developer Relations manager at Borland and maintainer of this database, himself:
"There is every reason to believe we'll have over 10,000 detailed, useful
examples by this time next year. If all of our developers/customers submit
AT LEAST ONE, we could have millions in less than months. [..] I'd like to see
10 times more examples than you'd ever see on MSDN."
So, let's start with it,
fellows! This thingy could be of enourmous help for all of us. A working Beta release
of the Client is ready for download and Borland awaits your comments and suggestions.
As mentioned in their official press release, Inprise
will strategically divide into the Inprise division (main target: middleware, enterprise) and the
new/old Borland division (product line: Delphi, C++Builder, JavaBuilder, Interbase). Beside a job-cut of
190 employees, this was obviously one of the main movements after publication of their financial reports for Quarter 4/1998.
So we will see borland.com back again together with some new
marketing ideas and efforts especially to this part of the site during the next weeks.
For now, due to Inprise's "shhhh! - don't tell anyone!" marketing strategy no one can
really say for sure what this means to all of us and to our preferred development tool, Delphi.
We can just hope that Inprise - yet Borland again - will keep on to be aware of its crown jewel
and to increase their strenghts for releasing state-of-the-art versions of Delphi in the future -
eventually also to open for the Unix (resp. Linux) market which undoubtedly
gains market share rapidly and not the least attracts more and more developers these days.
Sorry for OT, but this is really amazing (although I always expected it.. ;-):
"..Despite Microsoft's insistence that Internet Explorer and Windows 98 cannot be
separated, a Maryland biologist has done it and is willing to share his methods with anyone who's interested..":
http://98lite.net
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19981215S0017
Just wanted to let you know... o:)
New Delphi Mailing-Lists have been set up by Ken Kyler as a replacement
for the obiviously dead DDJ-Thread, DDJ-Thread-DB and Delphi-Talk Mailing Lists.
Subscription to these mailing lists is especially suggested to Delphi Developers
who have just limited access to the Newsgroups or simply want to join interesting
topics and discussions about Delphi-related programming topics. Find more information and subscription informations on my
Delphi Information Resources page.
Linux gains more and more market. As the Halloween documents
have shown, even M$ seems have started to respect Linux as serious competitor for their OS.
Now, what about Delphi? Wouldn't it be wonderful being able to work with it under Linux, too?
The problem is just that Inprise didn't yet show any plans to develop something like a "Delphi for Linux".
If you think the idea of such a Pascal-based RAD system under Linux would be worth thinking more about it,
please make your vote at the Software Wish List.
Quite interesting quote so far, btw. ...!
Inprise started above contest for US developers (why just them? anyway..)
Find more information at their related webpage
if you are interested.
The upgrade of the Borland Database Engine version 5.01 is available for download on the Inprise web site.
BDE 5.01 contains many new features and performance improvements you might find valuable. It's a slightly
newer version of the BDE than the version included with Delphi 4 web update #2 - the only difference is the
performance improvements for Microsoft Access.
New BDE features include:
· New SQL Links driver for IBM DB2 V5
· Fix for rounding errors on BCD types
· Fix for Oracle stored procedures
· Performance Improvements for DbiModifyRecord
· Performance Improvements for Microsoft Access
· Improvements for Paradox
· Other bug fixes
You can find links to the download pages for the upgrade on my "Delphi Tools, Patches & Updates" page.
The long awaited International (german, french) Patches #2 for Delphi 4 are now available at the Inprise Website.
Delphi 4.02 still has a number of bugs, but runs much faster and more stable than
both first releases. Be sure to get it!
You can find links to the download pages for those patches on my "Delphi Tools, Patches & Updates" page.
The long awaited Patches #2 for Delphi 4 are now available at the Inprise Website.
Due to Server overload, I had no chance to download and install it yet, but many people
in the newsgroups told that Delphi 4.02 runs quite smart now and doesn't show bugs of the
ugly sort anymore. More, QuSoft just released a quite stable and reliably working
Version 3.02 of QuickReports, so we finally seem to have reached the point where upgrading to Delphi 4 makes sense!
You can find links to the download pages for those patches on my "Delphi Tools, Patches & Updates" page.
Some fairies told me that some popular computer magazines like the german "PC Plus" recently contained FREE copies
of Delphi 2 on their enclosed Software CDROMs! This might be a great chance for Delphi newbies to learn about the
program without too much risk.
Only a few weeks to go, and Delphi 4 will be shipped !
For latest available information about this promising update, I'd suggest you to visit
Inprises Delphi 4 Homepage.
Other good sources of information can be found at Dr.Bob's great Delphi 4 Information Pages.
Also, see interesting online articles listed on this page or
Dr.Bob's great list of features Delphi 4 will bring.
If you purchase Delphi 3 between April 1, 1998 and June 30, 1998 ,
Inprise offers you an upgrade to the next Delphi version for free.
See details on Inprise's related webpage.
 |
Even if I tried it, I could not explain everything concerning this change
better than Borland (or should I already say "Inprise" ?) itself... |
Please simply visit Borland's / Inprise's new site or try the following ones:
However, Delphi will still be named "Borland Delphi" for the next time.
Personally I can understand that Borland had to think about new strategies to become
a little more independent of a market where M$ is a merciless landlord if
Gates thinks that the interests
of his company could somehow be endangered...
But all of us hope that Borland doesn't "forget" us "little programmers" who helped
Borland gaining floor again after its heavy financial troubles. Delphi is a great
product and Borland should continue putting energy in this only alternative to
VB for programmers in the RAD Tools market.
Just my $ 0.02 ..
"Software Magazine" just announced 1997/98 winners of their coveted Editors'
Choice Awards, which are given to software vendors who achieve excellence in
a particular vertical segment. Borland won in the "Software Development" category !
Borland opened a newsgroup archive for searching at
http://forumsearch.borland.com:88/.
The archive includes all messages posted to forums.borland.com
starting with May 7, 1997.
Borland recently announced earnings for Q2 and have achieved their second
profitable quarter in a row. Here are some points from the report which is
available on the Web:
- 8% growth in revenues from Q1 to Q2
- 3 cents per share profitability, beating street expectations
- 55%-60% revenues from client/server products
The plans on making Borland a strong growing business and releasing one major
product per quarter is really paying off. Borland's strength seems to continue
to grow, more customers will find Borland a long-term, viable vendor. This results
in more consulting opportunities, more jobs, and more profitability. Which, in
turn, means more best-of-breed products.
If you are interested in details of the good news,
check out Borland's paper about their Second Quarter Fiscal 1998 Results.
Borland and Microsoft announced today that they have reached a
settlement in the lawsuit Borland filed earlier this year in which
they accused Microsoft of recruiting and hiring Borland technical
talent in an intentional effort to harm financially-troubled Borland.
The suit charged that Microsoft was lured 34 key employees away from
Borland by offering ridiculously large salaries. According to Borland,
$1 million signing bonuses were offered in several cases. Terms of the
settlement are confidential.
"We believe this settlement is in the best interest of both our
companies," Borland and Microsoft officials said in a statement. "This
settlement resolves any legal questions surrounding the lawsuit and
allows both companies to move forward."
For more "information" (!): this is Micro$oft's official press release.
..found at various sites and in the Borland newsgroups
- Borland sold 1 Million copies of Delphi 3 !
(announced at the 1997 BorDev conference)
- Borland works on a maintenance release for Delphi 3
(US version should be available at the end of August)
- Borland will ship the Delphi 3 Enterprise edition soon.
(which is basically Delphi 3 C/S with the Entera product included).
- Borland will not produce a 16-bit update of Delphi 1.02
(well, that hurts)
..published by Borland
SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. -- July 22, 1997 -- Borland International, Inc.
(NASDAQ - BORL) today announced results for its first quarter fiscal
year 1998 ending June 30, 1997. First quarter revenues were $41,970,000
compared with revenues of $38,146,000 for the first quarter of the
previous fiscal year. First quarter revenues were up 10 percent over
the first quarter of fiscal year 1997.
Net income for the first quarter of fiscal year 1998 was $79,000, which
is a break-even in terms of earnings per share. This is compared with a
net loss of $21,809,000 or ($.60) per share for the first quarter of
fiscal 1997.
The company's cash balance on June 30, 1997 was $76,600,000 at the end
of the first quarter of 1998 compared to an ending cash balance of
$54,400,000 at March 31, 1997. The increase in cash was primarily the
result of the closing of the privately placed equity financing of
approximately $25 million and exercises of employee stock options of
approximately $1.6 million.
"The positive results for the first quarter of our fiscal year 1998
clearly indicate that our aggressive turnaround program has introduced
stability to the company and placed us on track for meeting our
long-term financial objectives," said Borland Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer Delbert W. Yocam.
"Six months ago we initiated an aggressive turnaround program that
included substantial cost reductions, the streamlining of our workforce,
as well as the introduction of a world-class management team. We also
took immediate steps to streamline and revise our existing products,
introduce new products where appropriate, and redouble our efforts to
ensure on-time product releases," Yocam added.
NOTE: Copies of previous Borland press releases as well as the full text of this
press release you can find on Borland's Website.
..by me. ;-)
DFL Software and Successware (home of the great Apollo Database engine) have become
part of Luxent Software (home of the LightLib products),
making Luxent the largest privately held component developer in the world.
It's planned to release major upgrades for all concerned products within the
coming 3 months.
In addition, Luxent plans to "integrate the powerful graphic and database features
of both product lines (Apollo / 3D Graphics Server) to create new ActiveX-based
component suites aimed at a fully integrated graphical database solution for the
Professional and Corporate software development marketplace.
If interested, see the related press release.
by Brad Clarke, John Hamm, Michael Heacock, me and other members of the
Delphi-Talk mailing list
Join the "POWERED BY DELPHI" campaign by putting the
corresponding "Button" in your Applications' "About"-boxes ! ... thus showing
the world (and it's software-managers) which great products are realizeable
with this tool.
Quoting Michael: "We might all do the same...this might just catch the
attention of some of the corporate folk (the people who hire) and make them
think, "Hey, this is a pretty amazing program and it wasn't programmed in VB...
I wonder why? Hey, Bob, look into Delphi willya!"
Left Button design by John Hamm / SnapJax, right one by Chris Cowherd,
both slightly adapted by me.
There are some other versions of the button available on our
Download-Page, so you can
choose the best-fitting version of it for your App.
by Brad Clarke
Be very careful when uninstalling Delphi 2 after you have installed
Delphi 3; you might have a lot of work ahead of you.
Here's why....
I didn't need Delphi 2 on my system anymore, so I decided to uninstall
it using the uninstall feature (InstallShield).
No big deal right? WRONG!!!
In addition to removing Delphi 2 from my system, it removed about 80%
of my Delphi 3 settings from the registry, as well as removing all of
my components from the IDE.
Now I have to spend several hours reinstalling Delphi 3 and all my
third party components, and reconfigure Delphi 3 back to the way it
was before the InstallShield crap blew everything away!!!!!
Sausage dumps 'unstable' Visual Basic, adopts Delphi
by Jennifer McCarthy
Internet developer Sausage Software has moved to correct a "horrendously"
expensive mistake" by shifting all its windows-specific development to
Borland's Delphi programming language.
Sausage had previously been using Microsoft Visual Basic to write its
internet applications.
Sausage chief executive steve outtrim said VB had been inefficient and
was a "horrendously expensive mistake".
The switch by Sausage means the first Delphi 3 version of Hotdog
Profesional will be released next month.
The first version of Sausage's entry-level web publishing tool, Hotdog
Express was written in Delphi and proved a success.
Hotdog Express was designed for people building a web site for the first
time and is the beginner's version of the company's Hotdog Professional
web authoring tool.
Mr. Outtrim said previous versions had been written in Visual Basic but
many users had experienced installation problems, untraceable bugs, and
susceptibility to frequent changes in core Microsoft operating system
libraries.
Mr. Outtrim said that although he expected Delphi to produce faster
executables he had not realised it would solve major customer support
problems as well.
"We're using Delphi from now on.", he said.
Visual Basic might have been an appropriate language for prototyping,
but it was unsuitable for writing real applications, Mr. Outtrim said.
Local Borland managing director Ray Bradbery said his company had giuen
sausage a "fair degree of support" and it could now get other products
to market more quickly.
by Online Computer-Magazines ..
- Borland's official press releases
- Borland's "Delphi in the News" regularly updated!
- Borland's "What the Press is Saying about Delphi" regularly updated!
- "Delphi Direct" view the popup links on a webpage [new:14-Apr-2k]
- News Flash: Borland names new CEO from Nov.25, 1996
- News Flash: Borland's troubles increase from Dec.12, 1996
- News Flash: Borland won't give up on Delphi from Jan.29, 1997
- News Flash: Borland: worse than expected from Jan.22, 1997
- The Players: Legal issues accompany high salaries Article about the leave of Anders Heijsberg from April 1997
- Delphi 3 is ZDNet's "Windows Expert's choice" winner ! from May 1997
- PC Professionell empfiehlt Delphi 3 (germ.) from June 1997
- CNET review: Delphi 3 Client/Server Suite - the ultimate intranet glue from July 1997
- PC WEEK: Borland unveils strategy for corporate 'InfoNets' at BorCon97 from July, 1997
- Delphi is IT leaders' choice in Application development from Jan 17, 1998
- Borland International is on a roll from Jan.28, 1998
- TechWeb: "Two paths to RAD" a VB/Delphi comparison
- PcWeek: "Delphi 3: a real draw"
- Infoworld: "Delphi 3 closes in on Visual Basic 5"
- PcWeek: "Borland widens stake in CORBA" from 22-Apr-98
- Borland reports 1st quarter 1998 results from 23-Apr-98
- Yahoo's Borland-related news updated regularely ! [new:29-Apr-98]
- Microsoft, Inprise ready competing RAD tools [new:12-Jun-98]
- PcWeek: Delphi 4 and VB6 take aim [new:15-Jun-98]
- InfoWorld: Updated Delphi impresses developers [new:16-Jun-98]
- Yahoo: Inprise Offers to License 100% Pure Java Technology to Microsoft [new:20-Nov-98]
- Delphi 4 wins visual development tools comparison PC Magazine April 1999 [25-Feb-99]
- Inprise, Microsoft ready cross-licensing deal ComputerWorld [09-Jun-99]
- $25 million purchase by Microsoft of Inprises preferred stock Yahoo News [09-Jun-99]
- Delphi 4 under Win100 Software Windows Magazine [July '99 issue]
- Borland Strategies Announced at Microsoft Developers Conference [31-Aug-99]
- Delphi 5 Beta 3 review by InfoWorld
- Inprise trots out Borland Delphi 5, faces cloudy future [20-Jul-99]
- Dave Fuller Interview about Interbase Open Source [13-Jan-2k]
- Planet IT News, Technology, Advice, Community
- Borland's 3rd Quarter 2000 Results promising! [28-Oct-2k]
- Delphi Application Powers Human Genome Database Analysis Tool [28-Dec-2k]
Again: Please e-mail us if any links are out of date or if you have tips or suggestions !
Kylix launched!
