Vote NO, demand a finished product. Will this name change increase
sales and profits? As a professional programmer my slant is
specific and Inprise does absolutley nothing good for my inclination
to buy a Borland development tool, other than confuse the professional
development community.
I still get confused as to whether Norton is a defunct company
just selling off out dated tools or a real viable entity/product.
When I hit the resellers for tools, the LAST product I look at is
anything with the Norton name because there is 'doubt' as too the
commitment to the product generated by the marketing confusing.
Borland ( again 90% will get lost on the concept this will still
be a valid name for a live and growing product family ) has an
opportunity to leverage their great development tools in one clear
and concise step. Put significant resources and marketing talent
into documentation and training tools that at least match or exceed
third party books and documentation.
The limiting factor for developers today is time, not the added
confusion of a corporate identity crisis. We have a hard enough
time selling change in the tools sets to management, let alone
trying to sell a tool set change along with an unknown entity like Inprise.
If I can convince my management team that the tools are productive
and it won't take me six months to find appropriate documentation to
decipher the minds of Borland engineers, we could knock the
competition of the map...and that would make Borland a star amoung
the entire development community.
If you fail to focus resources on developer sensitive issues ( i.e.
how to effectively use the leverage advertised in your products in
OLE, ActiveX, CORBA, JAVA integration, and effectivey demonstrated
how to reduce the astronomical cost of developers time and training)
and blind side the development community with 90% solutions and
marketing hype, our jobs become at risk and our ability to support
the company is diminished.
The development community, in my opinion, was waiting for the LONG
awaited superior documentation on how to use what is already
there... but instead we have to wait for thirdy party books to
explain why we should risk our reputations on a marketing ploy.
And as a stock holder...I will vote against the name change. I want
Borland to do what IBM, Apple, Northwest Airlines,
Johnson and Johnson and a host of other world class corporations
have done in tough times, do a better job and refine the product to
what the customer demands, don't try to change the customer to what
Borland want's. Borland IS the company...the product is the problem. |
