Well, I can't be 100% sure but it's pretty obvious that INPR had some low-ball offers but decided to go it alone. I have a theory regarding this.
Delphi revenue is falling but it's still a huge chunk of the pie. The problem is I don't want to waste my time with Pascal syntax because I don't see it in generally available support material. Take one of the classics Numerical Recipes in Pascal. When that came out in C the sales of the Pascal version dropped off the face of the Earth. In short, the language is dead, adieu.
Give me Java with native compilation any day. We don't need C++ for application development now either. That's coming from somebody who has made his living off it over the past eight years: me. I would have no problem continuing on with C++ but Java is definitely going to surpass the success of C++ by a very wide margin. That's saying something. I can use the JNI to interface to legacy code, that interface works flawlessly and I can even use a Java function in a callback!
Now here's the point: Inprise thinks that Delphi is really valuable while the outside world sees it as an opportunity to migrate Delphi customers to Java tools. Visual Basic is history outside of a cheap replacement for traditional shell scripts and quick 'n dirty forms.
Visibroker may be worth a chunk of change but it's an implementation of a standard that you can license, as Inprise should have done. Who cares about interoperability across languages anyway? Develop in Java and use EJB, JNI and RMI. Why waste your time supporting new projects in old languages? Build the product in Java on both ends and if you need a bridge then use JNI, period.
Visigenics and the CORBA crowd suffer from the same brain-damaged, myopic, dopey-think that COM has: I want to pass objects (that is, objects with state) as parameters and they don't support that. In some cases I mostly pass objects and I don't want to be handcuffed with some 1960s notion of data types. That's why CORBA and COM are more like anchors than bridges. They make sure you're stuck in the past. Rest assured Del Yocam didn't understand any of this, and neither does the boad that brought him in, supported him, and taught him everything they know: zilch.
Getting back to the point. If you're going with Java-based solutions why purchase a company with a dying language and a bridge to Jurrasic Park? That leaves the Inprise loyalist developers and JBuilder as their two main assets. Add to that C++Builder for native interfaces. That's why I think Rational is going to make a bid for Inprise but they probably came in very low. That's also why I think Inprise has decided to go it alone and go down with the ship if they have to. I also think that decision explains the reaction of Coates and Company. |
