Newsmaker: Borland's squeeze play

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even say the "J" word, certainly won't say it in public. What we can do working with them is provide that kind of linkage for .Net.

Yet Microsoft is clearly interested in the ALM market as well. Can you keep it symbiotic without getting pushed to the side in any particular area?
Arnold: The evidence so far is that we have delivered. (We demonstrated) "together modeling" on (Microsoft's) Visual Studio, and a version of Caliber requirements gathering product on (Microsoft's forthcoming collaborative development suite) Team System. In both cases, Microsoft has welcomed us with open arms. With our Delphi installed base, we have a huge chunk of Win32 developers we're helping to move ahead on .Net. There are a lot of reasons for Microsoft to see us an ally, and I think it would be our intent to keep it that way.

Can you address the calls from shareholder Robert Coates to break up the company, which he says will improve shareholder value?
Arnold: I'd love to see the details of whatever plan he has. As you'd expect, we've looked at a lot of things as part of normal strategic process. And we've concluded there are important synergies between the relationships between our developer (products) and our ALM suite. And we have unique capability that makes the ALM stronger and better.

On the specific part of our deployment, or middleware, products--as we think about what gets in the way of building and deploying software--a chunk of the gap is between the application team who doesn't know what kind of environment they're deploying into it. (The) handoff isn't working very well. Part of the reason we think it makes sense to have those products (is because) with the benefit of the run-time experience, we know a little bit of what it takes to take applications from development to operations.

We have some products we have developed, and (we) continue to look at developing (more) that address the apps-to-ops gap. It's not a huge focus, but it's not obvious why it's so compelling to "break this up."

I think it's very easy to stand on the side and say you should break something up, without really understanding the details of how things are linked together.

Has selling off pieces of the product line been a consideration in the past?
Arnold: We think about portfolio issues all the time. It's a normal course of doing business if you're running the company properly. In my opinion, it's much ado about not much. There's been no specific plan delivered by Mr. Coates or anyone else. And frankly, not a lot of new content or new thinking involved in what they've said publicly.

Some people argue that with industry consolidation, the big will get bigger, which perhaps shuts out midsize companies. What do you think?
Arnold: I can tell you there are a bunch of examples where we've gone head-to-head against IBM and we've beaten them. And in one case, which was one of our largest ALM deals ever, we beat them when they were free. So there's something about really thinking about these things holistically, about a process plus technology message that is really compelling to some of the largest, most notable, name-brand customers on the planet. So we're getting something right.

In terms of the broader question, we believe we're clearly over the bar in terms of being big enough to be sustainable. There are a bunch of smaller competitors still offering point products in the ALM space that've got to be having a tough time of it.

Historically, you've been known as an IDE company. How difficult has the transition to the suite strategy been culturally?
Arnold: Piece of cake. People change very easily. (Laughs). Of course it's hard--people build a lot of identity in the success of a specific product line. And we've spent a lot of time talking to them--it's not unlike the railways which forget they're in the transportation business. There's a huge set of problems that have yet to be solved.

One of things we're spending a bunch of time on is (working) on how we can rev up the innovation engine. It's not about putting another blue knob or red level on JBuilder. It's conceiving the role of the individual developer as part of the team.

Given the disruption, what are you focusing on?
Arnold: First and foremost ALM is our growth engine, and we're focused on driving ALM revenue. Second is we are really trying to step up efforts in measuring our own success in how we make customers successful.

Third, the company over the last couple of years has undergone a huge amount of change. We've had a huge influx from different companies. We've got a bit of a melting pot right now of approaches and ideas. We've got to...combine those with the traditional Borland culture of technical excellence (and customer focus) and meld that into a new Borland culture.

More Newsmakers

The team of software development

I believe Scott has articulated a greater social conumdrumm that extends beyond the wall of the software team. Essentially it is important that we as individuals understand our role in a greater process. It is through this understanding that we begin to realize that our own pursuit of higher productivity may in places create a destructive force against those who are working with us to create a product. Therefore the cutlure of hero-devloper must be understood as a non-sustainable and ultimatley destructive way of deliverying solutions. The developer must instead focus his creative energy and output in ways that not overly restrict or cause other particpants to expend more resources and energy than required to reach the goal. The developer is a member of the team and should act accordingly.

It would be intersting to model a software culture based in part by Ivan Illach work Tools for Conviviality.

[System Tyrant]

More than developers.

Your comment hits upon a problem that effects all business. Team work is something all business with more than one person needs to understand. The problem is getting people to understand and keeping them team players once they do. People tend to believe that their job is always harder than anyone elses.

Its a dessert topping and a floor wax ...

Borland's been too many things with too many visions by too many CEO's. Can it fit between MSFT and IBM? Can it do IDE up through process management suites? Can it do open source as well as proprietary? Well Arnolds right to to focus on tough, high valued areas - but will he get Borland there?

This interview reminds me of one of the news.com.com perspective pieces this summer - "Misplaced Software Priorities", which talked about focus and determination in open source as a transformative process for clear execution - something Borland's lacked.

[Richie]

I say

Keep up the good work don't let people get to you I have faith in a company that has been around for so many years. Stick with it Borland.

[zaznet]

Unique Opportunity

Borland has a unique opportunity to fill the gaps where Microsoft and IBM won't go. They also have a better position to draw on the open source community and developers. The hard part there is drawing money out of those developers.

There are a lot of development languages, and as products tie different platforms together someone needs to be there to make that job easier.

I could see a multi-platform IDE for a large list of development languages with integrated support for a CVS repository.

Delphi users: who needs .NET?

"With our Delphi installed base, we have a huge chunk of Win32 developers we're helping to move ahead on .Net".

It looks Borland does not understand at all that many Delphi developers don't need to move and don't want to move to .NET as long as Windows allows for native code to run. If I needed a WM or a GC I wuold been using VB6 or Java already.

And whenever I move to .NET - if forced - I will be using MS tools, of course. Why should I use someone's else just to do the same thing? That's why MS likes Borland so much... move everybody to .NET and they will rule...