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

To: Robert Graham who wrote (9279)	3/3/1998 3:13:00 PM
From: david thor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10836

<The biggest mistake the board of directors made was to fire the founder of this company. > Robert, At the time, there were many who thought the BOD took too long. It's just not that simple and his success at Starfish Software is, I think, evidence that he is still the highly creative person he's always been, but Borland was financially strapped at the time for reasons that he had to be accountable for as CEO. I'm not so sure that your focus on Borland's past has much bearing on people who are not interested in their past, but I will agree with you that the corporate environment, once moved toward one solution, requires a convincing argument to change and this is certainly a challenge for any company. I think Borland's going in the right direction, though. Regards, Dave

To: Robert Graham who wrote (9279)	3/3/1998 8:31:00 PM
From: ED_L	Respond to of 10836

BORL home page has job posting for 4 QA Engineers. Qualified software QAs are not that easy to find. If you are good at programming you will normally would want to program (i.e. be creative) not verify/validate the work of someone else. One single job listing I checked last week had posting for 780 Software QA jobs (most 50 -120k). Plus QA folks are often not appreciated as most programmers feel that they build quality in (or at least can debug errors in their own programs) without aid of someone independent participating. Consequently, independent V&V, including detailed code walk-through, is frequently relegated to only a minor role in software development (such as reviewing/approving software QA Plans/BAT/SAT results). Some companies pull out qualified programmers, give them QA training, and temporarily assign them to the QA organization with understanding that it will be for a limited period.

To: Robert Graham who wrote (9279)	3/3/1998 8:45:00 PM
From: shane forbes	Respond to of 10836

Bob: I think that was a different company you are referring to! Or the right company but a different time. A year or a year and a half ago I would have said yup that sounds exactly right. But I think things have changed. I'm not a professional programmer (yet!) so can't comment on all the technical stuff. But will make a couple of observations: (a) BCB v. 3.0 will be BORLs only C++ product. The old BORL C++ is no more. (b) BORL rated highest for developer loyalty in a recent magazine article. I suspect this is because they have good tools. Also even though the sample size was small, their JBuilder and Delphi products ranked best in a recent survey. My suspicion is that with increasing complexity RAD tools are the wave and BORL has a good lead here over MSFT. Also it's smart for BORL to make the product IDE's similar. All these tell me BORL developers like their tools inspite of any limitations. (c) Also the VCL is a good library! Not just an application framework. Not blasting MFC just think VCL is a step above and for business application development/component development VCL is very good. Now if BORL can convince non Delphi developers to take the time to learn it! (d) BCB is a "next generation" tool in my mind. I think like Delphi these RAD tools offer substantial productivity gains for business application development than some of the older C++ compilers. Don't think one would do systems development with BCB - VC++ would be streets ahead I'm sure. However didn't BCB 3.0 try and address this? Nevertheless I think BORLs proper emphasis should be on enterprise application development and that's where BCB looks good. (e) "struggling to survive" to me is again reminiscent of "another time, another company". A tad too harsh these days. (f) again your "thinking of the customer" attitude not being understood or listened to at BORL seems outdated to me. Any of their newer product introductions shows that they do listen to the developer. What about the new developer programs they have? Plus most importantly the professional services organization they will have in place that should make them come a step closer to their customers? (g) Creative leadership is good but one also needs business acumen. The former + a big ego + none of the latter = almost bankrupt company. (h) Maybe with Sippl they now have Creative Leadership, with Yocam they also have business leadership. Hopefully no egomaniacs. To wit, Creative Leadership + Business Acumen + No Ego = thriving company, or so we shall hope. (i) "transform" or die: That's what BORL has been doing for the last year! These things take time but their large enterprise deals suggest that they are leveraging their product expertise into business success. The initial results are in and they look pretty good! Now to see if the next stages will be done smoothly.

To: Robert Graham who wrote (9279)	3/3/1998 10:00:00 PM
From: David Miller	Respond to of 10836

This is a huge change in quality from Borland's previous focus on the customer. There are two critically important facets to "re-inventing the company". The first is to define clearly the new business model that the company aspires to, and the second is to manage the transition with as little collateral damage as possible. Clarity of the target business model is important so that all stakeholders - customers, employees and shareholders - can choose whether to be a part of that vision. Too often, this is fudged around with generalities (read: motherhood statements) that give everyone a warm feeling without having to be too specific and detailed. The transition is also critical. It quite specifically entails having a conscious plan to manage a graceful parting with those customers who don't form part of your future, at the same time as moving the focus of your energies towards developing the new market. I have expressed here on a couple of occasions my concerns about both of these issues. Although I am personally convinced that the underlying strategy - moving into the enterprise space - is the right one, I have always been uneasy at the lack of detail that accompanied this decision. There is little evidence that Borland fully understands the dynamics of the market it is moving into. Your comments indicate that their transition plan for those customers who do not form a direct part of Borland's corporate, enterprise-led thrust is also suspect. Product quality is only one issue; the changes being made to the channel structure are designed for internal efficiencies, and care less about customer relationships. For a company that relies so heavily on the programming community for its "neat software" image, this is more than a little thoughtless. david

To: Robert Graham who wrote (9279)	3/4/1998 6:21:00 PM
From: Jeroen Pluimers	Respond to of 10836

Both original releases of Borland C++ 4.x and 5.x never should have been released this way. The releases dates were more or less forced by non-technical people. The updates and inline releases got better, but Borland C++ 5.0x never acheived the heights of Borland C++ 3.x. Borland C++ Builder however is much much better. It is very stable and has much more support for the stuff you want to accomplish. Furthermore, it also supports the object pascal language. jeroen