Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : BORL: Time to BUY! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David Miller who wrote (8998)	2/9/1998 1:19:00 AM
From: Mark Bracey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10836

Incidentally, I wonder how Del feels about his statement about targetting (sic) "the Forte market" right now, given Forte's own performance recently. I have been following the FRTE thread. I don't know the products specifically, only what I have read there. From what I gather, FRTE is a 4GL product, while BORL is a traditional 3GL. It has also been indicated on that thread that the FRTE GUI is not well conceived. Most people here that use Delphi/JBuilder/C++Builder will tell you that their GUI is best of class. What the user sees on a day to day basis is a large part of what convinces a customer to buy. IF BORL has taken their knowledge of creating intuitive GUI and applied it to the management of multi-tier environments, even lacking some features, they will be hard to beat. It is my belief that this may be some of the problems that FRTE is encountering. What is your opinion?

To: David Miller who wrote (8998)	2/9/1998 2:30:00 AM
From: shane forbes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10836

David Re: Therefore an unknown in terms of P&L impact, therefore an additional investment risk factor? I absolutely agree 100%. So any gains from the 3 intros may be lost if the new BORL stumbles. I think that makes sense to me. --- Thus how do we measure the likelihood of success? I don't know. But how about the following as evidence: Those big deals in the 6 figure area and what appears to be more and more of them. BORL of the past "diworsified" trying to be the next MSFT. The new BORL is "focusisying" (!) on middleware and development tools with the big picture being the network. The licensing to ORCL, the targeting of the AS/400 market, the Entera area, the Delphi Enterprise suite all seem to point to the corporate enterprise markets. The "pacifying" of the MSFT bogeymen - we are not your enemy story etc..., don't steal our employees, we will do MSFT related stuff if the market wants it... And my guess is that the time is just right. The network has arrived big time. And if someone needs to develop enterprise wide applications I figure you would need: object oriented languages Top notch RAD development tools good "glue" good support staff from your vendor a lot of products (the one stop house theory) consulting services BORL seems to be working on all of these. And most importantly I think the quality of the mgt. team is vital. No point having the best tools in the world and running around like a chicken with its head cut off the way the Old Borl was wont to do. --- I don't know much about Forte. But perhaps we should see this as a positive light since if there was a MSFT type company in this arena it would have been tougher for BORL to dislodge them? Besides BORL is more than just targeting the Forte (C++ related only?) markets. --- And I do agree that the future is much more relevant and important for BORL than the past. After all this is a transformation into a new type of company where you could argue that they are in effect starting with a clean slate. However as you know they first must show that they have the wherewithal to manage their current business (so financial strength, balance sheets, profis trending up are good signs - shows mgt. is not fumbling around - a bit of a weak argument here but managing a business is not easy and some of the best companies in the world have failed because of poor financial mgt.) and re: TA, tough for me to comment here because I know very little, but I like to see a nice supply-demand graph as opposed to a crappy one! Good for the wallet! ---