The Future of Delphi, Continued
It’s been two months since I commented on Borland’s planned spin-off. Time for an update.
The release of BDS 2006 Update 2 shows that Delphi et al. are still in active development. If Borland merely wanted to get rid of the products at the best possible price, there would be no point in releasing a free update. I installed it this morning. The most obvious improvement is that switching between files in the code editor is once again virtually instant.
Allen Bauer has been blogging about the spin-off quite a bit. Allen is one of the leaders in the BDS/Delphi product team(s).
David I hosted a chat with several well-known long-time Delphi supporters and component vendors. I only recently got around to listening to the replay. The most interesting bit of information in the chat was given by David I himself around 70 minutes into the chat, where he talks about the status of the spin-off.
Obviously, Borland being a public company, David I and co. are legally limited in what they can say. But he did say that all the interested parties are investment banker and venture capital types. That’s good news.
There’s been quite some speculation in the Delphi newsgroups about potential buyers. Many expressed hope that this or that large software company would pick up Delphi and put their weight behind it. I think being bought by a software company is the worst thing that could happen to Delphi.
Delphi’s problem right now is that it’s owned by a company that’s not focused on development tools. Delphi competes for resources with the ALM products, and ALM is what’s getting the attention at Borland. If another software company bought Delphi, Delphi would simply end up in the same situation.
So what do these capitalist banker’s know about software development? Well, not much. And that’s the key. They’ll let the people who do know about the technical side of the business make the product development decisions, as long as the business is profitable. Since Borland claims their development tools are profitable, and 3rd party developers claim (in the chat) that the 3rd party market is still healthy, this should be an attainable goal.