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Technology Stocks : INPR - Inprise to Borland (BORL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (503)	7/15/1998 9:13:00 AM
From: Steve Wood	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5102

David, I understand that Java is not going to take over the desktop overnight. However, Java IS being widely accepted in the development of applications where it is clearly the best tool. For example, internet real time quotes. Over the past year, several attempts have been made by several companies to offer reliable, real time quotes (equities, options & futures) over the internet. I've used a number of them. The first ones required that you download software compatible with your platform (in many cases only Windows was supported) and install it on your system. These worked, but tended to be unstable and on occasion, new versions had to be downloaded either manually or automatically. By far the most stable and impressive internet real time quote system I've seen is available at quote.com. It is available on any platform using a Java enabled browser. Nothing to download, nothing added to your machine. I've seen numerous enhancements all without any effort on my part. BTW I have no relation to quote.com other than as a satisfied customer. Another area where Java IS widely accepted is embedded systems, especially smart cards. They are widely used in parts of Europe and SE Asia. Java is the dominant development environment for smart card applications. Hope this helps clarify why I believe that if Inprise can become a leader in distributed application development based on their Java expertise, I think we'll have a real winner. Que le vaya bien... Steve

To: i-node who wrote (503)	7/15/1998 2:02:00 PM
From: David R	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5102

Hey David. It has been a while since we have chatted. I have had a real education with the BORL/INPR leaps (it was all your idea). Certainly, we did not do as well as we had hoped (although I have not given up on Jan 99's yet). I did avg down with some Jan 99 7.5's recently. The biggest mistake you and I made with regards to the calls wasn't buying them. It was our failure to take advantage of the time premium that we bought. In OCT, BORL was at 12. We could have sold Oct 10's, covered with our Jan 98 10's. And then Nov 10's, etc. In all, we would have netted about 3-5 points. In each case, the only risk was missing out on a hypothetical run (I think that greed is the key word). The second thing was to put stops on the calls when BORL was up. Oh well, hind sight is 20-20. We'll still make a few dollars off of these calls, and the education was a prize. I am happy that I will come out of this a fair return (with the help of the 7.5's). All we need is a good Q, and we should see 10 or better. Regards, DavidR

To: i-node who wrote (503)	7/15/1998 3:50:00 PM
From: martin davies	Respond to of 5102

David, Everyone is entitled to their opinions but I think your's is wrong - obviously Java is not going to take over all other languages within months - but it is gaining momentum and I think it will become the programming language of choice within a couple of years. C, C++, VB and Delphi will always exist but I feel that Java will become the defacto standard when developing a new application. I work for a large software development shop and Java is being seriously looked at for future projects/enhancements. Programmers are getting ready for Java, a significant amount of our developers are taking Java classes. Management realizes what is going on and is trying to manage the needs of adding business functionality to the product as well as to move the application to a better development environment. It is going to happen. MD