INPR - Inprise to Borland (BORL) Message Board

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Technology Stocks : INPR - Inprise to Borland (BORL)

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To: Big Dog who wrote (3842)	12/24/1999 2:05:00 PM
From: Big Dog	of 5102

API = Money Machine by: krazilec 12/23/1999 6:43 pm EST Msg: 25508 of 25609 API is the application programmers interface, basically when you open a file, or draw something to the screen you are calling the API of the OS or GUI to do the job. MS have always owned the API's, so they could do stuff in Windows that no-one else could and did often with their office products. When MS wanted to kill an API (as they did with Win16 which legally they could not protect) they deprecate it forcing everyone to now write to the new API. Basically the API is the key to doing anything on a computer, and MS OWNS and GUARDS the windows API, and Linus has set up the linux API so it could NOT be OWNED. But if someone writes a series of Objects that abstract the OS and GUI API's then developers write to that, then THAT entity owns the interface. In 94 when Borland build an Object interface called OWL that did just that, then ported it to OS/2 and threatened to do it to Novells Appware and the MAC, Gates wrote the 'Kill Phillipe' email calling on all employees to leave no stone unturned to squash Borland. Borland was at $80, and employee bonuses were tied to negative changes in the BORL share price. Right now both Delphi and CBuilder use an object library called VCL which works with Windows only. They must port it to Linux OS and GUI. At that point all a developer needs to do is write to VCL and their app will work on Linux or Windows equally. Now when MS tries to change the underlying API for the IA64 version of Windows (as they will do) it does not affect developers as Borland will have simply changed VCL to talk to it as well. In the end INPR has the chance to own the toll booth for both Linux and Windows. Talk to a developer you trust and ask about this, I'm sure you'll be happily surprised.

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