Board index » delphi » What's Borland next 'marathon'? Delphi 3.0 or Delphi 1.5?

Brad Clar

Delphi Developer
Mon, 29 Mar 1999 03:00:00 GMT

What's Borland next 'marathon'? Delphi 3.0 or Delphi 1.5?

Quote
dg <dan...@arcos.org> wrote:
>> > I have spoken to our local Borland Office...and they believe that
>> > Delphi 1.5 won't be persued...I think that's {*word*99}py...

>> > I hope that they WILL bring out a Delphi 1.5.

>> The future is 32 bit OS's, 32 bit development and ActiveX.

>Doesn't it make sense if we look also at the past? How about
>our 16-bit small clients?

It makes a lot of sense.  The 16-bit world is far from dead.
--
Brad Clarke - bcla...@{*word*104}us.ca, aw...@freenet.carleton.ca
--
Version 1.2d of File Navigator For Windows now available for download.
http://www.{*word*104}us.ca/~bclarke/filenavw.html for more info.
 
Ken K

Delphi Developer
Mon, 29 Mar 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Re:What's Borland next 'marathon'? Delphi 3.0 or Delphi 1.5?


Quote
dg wrote:

> j...@weldnet.com (Jay Schwisow) writes:
> > In article <N.100496.165444.35@thelink>, From del...@iafrica.com (Me),
> > the following was written:
> > > I have spoken to our local Borland Office...and they believe that
> > > Delphi 1.5 won't be persued...I think that's {*word*99}py...

> > > I hope that they WILL bring out a Delphi 1.5.

> > The future is 32 bit OS's, 32 bit development and ActiveX.

> > God Bless,

> Doesn't it make sense if we look also at the past? How about
> our 16-bit small clients?

Unless Borland bundles a decent set of development tools, or some
really significant improvements to D2, or includes a D1 (1.5?) with
longstrings and other changes to bring it closer to D2, I'll be most
surprised if I buy the next Delphi *at all!*

OLE2, or ActiveX (whatever you want to call it) is not ideally done
with Delphi (for reasons of C++ based documentation, incomplete
implementation and lacking necessary tools, releases and fixes
lagging necessarily behind Microsoft, etc.)

Delphi has a niche in the market, and must exploit it fully to survive.

- Ken K.

Bruce Rosne

Delphi Developer
Tue, 30 Mar 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Re:What's Borland next 'marathon'? Delphi 3.0 or Delphi 1.5?


dg <dan...@arcos.org> wrote in article <53ij2s$...@reaper.uunet.ca>...

Quote

> j...@weldnet.com (Jay Schwisow) writes:
> > In article <N.100496.165444.35@thelink>, From del...@iafrica.com (Me),
> > the following was written:
> > > I have spoken to our local Borland Office...and they believe that
> > > Delphi 1.5 won't be persued...I think that's {*word*99}py...

There is simply not enough 16bit users who have money for new software but
not new 32 bit hardware. Its not that there are not a lot of 16 systems out
there, its just not usually a reasonable business decision to invest in new
software for older computers.
Jay Schwis

Delphi Developer
Tue, 30 Mar 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Re:What's Borland next 'marathon'? Delphi 3.0 or Delphi 1.5?


In article <325D5B81.4...@b.c>, From "Ken K." <a...@b.c>, the following
was written:

Quote
> Delphi has a niche in the market, and must exploit it fully to
> survive.

> - Ken K.

450,000 units in a year and a half is a nice start!!

God Bless,

--
Jay Schwisow j...@weldnet.com
10/10/96 20:57
---------
Using: OUI PRO 1.5.0.2 from http://www.dvorak.com

Markku Nevalaine

Delphi Developer
Tue, 30 Mar 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Re:What's Borland next 'marathon'? Delphi 3.0 or Delphi 1.5?


Quote
> Tired of hearing this Delphi 1.5 business.  By the time Borland
> released a 1.5, these Fortune 500 companies stuck on Win 3.1 will
> start Win95/NT4 rollouts.

I have only Delphi 1.0 version, and I have deciced that when there is
something
that absolutely can't be done with my current version, I'll have to
start studying
the D2 -turbo package. This has not happened yet.

My believe is, that there already is "1.5 version" of Delphi available
in
internet.

When you pick all the 1000+ freeware and shareware componets and combine
them to your D1.0, the result will be something like D1.6 version.
The problem is, that who would evaluate, document, check and combine all
those
products (the 20-40 most usable of them) to one supported package and
sell the
whole bundle, lets say at 100 bucks. Maybe this size, and kind, of
business is too
small for Borland.

If I am totally wrong, could someone tell me what kind of 2.0 feature
there is,
that is not already available as 1.0 component?

Chris Totte

Delphi Developer
Thu, 01 Apr 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Re:What's Borland next 'marathon'? Delphi 3.0 or Delphi 1.5?


Surely if most (progressive) companies replace their PC's every 3 years,
then it's fair to assume that in the next couple of years Pentiums with
at least 16meg of RAM (probably 32) will be the norm. Why should Borland
waste time during this period developing a 16bit system - it will only be
useful for a year!??

If I had 16bit applications in this climate I'd be thinking seriously
about getting them to run on 32bit systems like '95 and NT - pronto! If
you don't, your customers will be equally hard-headed by considering the
32bit competition - facts of life. They won't respect you by *you*
remaining 16bit, you have to show leadership and take the reigns. If your
customers drag you down to their level, you can't hope to be a
progressive growing company.

Borland shouldn't waste their time, they *have* to make Delphi 3.0 a rock
solid, thread safe, 32bit development system!! The VCL as it stands
doesn't match up to MS's MFC - it isn't even thread safe for gods sake,
they should concentrate on the matter at hand and be ruthless as far as
16bit software goes. Face up to the impending future and don't waste
*your* time developing for an OS that will be dead and practically
unsupported in two years!

Ok, that's my devils advocate bit! :)  

//chris@Home in Ireland

Mikael Olofsso

Delphi Developer
Fri, 02 Apr 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Re:What's Borland next 'marathon'? Delphi 3.0 or Delphi 1.5?


Quote
Chris Totten wrote:

> Surely if most (progressive) companies replace their PC's every 3 years,
> then it's fair to assume that in the next couple of years Pentiums with
> at least 16meg of RAM (probably 32) will be the norm. Why should Borland
> waste time during this period developing a 16bit system - it will only be
> useful for a year!??

-snip-

> Borland shouldn't waste their time, they *have* to make Delphi 3.0 a rock
> solid, thread safe, 32bit development system!! The VCL as it stands
> doesn't match up to MS's MFC - it isn't even thread safe for gods sake,
> they should concentrate on the matter at hand and be ruthless as far as
> 16bit software goes. Face up to the impending future and don't waste
> *your* time developing for an OS that will be dead and practically
> unsupported in two years!

> Ok, that's my devils advocate bit! :)

> //chris@Home in Ireland

Well, for big companies the time and money to replace existing hardware
and software, and not to mention educating the staff, is enormous.

I recently read that ABB took a decision to move to Windows NT.
They are replacing their computers and software over a 18 month period.
They have to replace 50 000 computers! And my humble guess is that
it will cost a neat little sum of money. Companies like these will be
reluctant to move until there is a significant advantage to gain.

These companies are amoung my customers and I will have the need for
both
16 and 32 bit Delphi the next couple of years. I would like to se an
upgrade
for the 16bit version, or even better a Delphi, 3 that targets both 16
and 32 bit.

/Mikael

Sweden

Jon & Aimee Robertso

Delphi Developer
Fri, 02 Apr 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Re:What's Borland next 'marathon'? Delphi 3.0 or Delphi 1.5?


Quote
> Surely if most (progressive) companies replace their PC's every 3
> years, then it's fair to assume that in the next couple of years
> Pentiums with at least 16meg of RAM (probably 32) will be the norm.

Most companies I know don't replace every PC they have every three
years.  When a machine works, why replace it?  Delphi 2.0 has some
nice features that should run on a 486 with Win3.1 without performance
concerns.  So why should these companies upgrade 100+ computers just
because their software vendor uses Borland's product during development
and is forced to go 32 bit?  If their current software solution works,
then they will probably not buy our improved (32-bit) version and stay
with what they have.  If it doesn't work, the people who make money
decisions would likely change software than spend hundreds of thousands
of dollars to upgrade their equipment.

Worse yet, most of our client's are county government offices.  We're
lucky any of these offices have 486es with 4MB RAM.

Quote
> Why should Borland waste time during this period developing a 16bit
> system - it will only be useful for a year!??

I would hope that most software developed with Delphi 1.0 will be useful
for more than a year.  Therefore, the development tool used to create
that software would also be useful for more than a year.

Quote
> If I had 16bit applications in this climate I'd be thinking seriously
> about getting them to run on 32bit systems like '95 and NT - pronto!
> If you don't, your customers will be equally hard-headed by
> considering the 32bit competition - facts of life. They won't respect
> you by *you* remaining 16bit, you have to show leadership and take the
> reigns. If your customers drag you down to their level, you can't hope
> to be a progressive growing company.

Our customers respect us for keeping the 16-bit version of our product
current, which allows them to enjoy new features without spending money
on new hardware.  Many of our customers could care less whether the
software is 16-bit or 32-bit.  They want a WORKING and INEXPENSIVE
software solution.  If you can provide that to your customers, they
will always respect you.

Quote
> Borland shouldn't waste their time, they *have* to make Delphi 3.0 a
> rock solid, thread safe, 32bit development system!! The VCL as it
> stands doesn't match up to MS's MFC - it isn't even thread safe for
> gods sake, they should concentrate on the matter at hand and be
> ruthless as far as 16bit software goes. Face up to the impending
> future and don't waste *your* time developing for an OS that will be
> dead and practically unsupported in two years!

They said Windows would kill DOS.  And OS/2 would kill Windows.  Now
95/NT will kill everything else.  We have 26 counties that use our
DOS software, because it's the best solution they have found.  26 out
of 75 counties.  That's 33% of our market in less than four years.  And
growing every day.  (Please note that this is a very specialized
program, it isn't even available to counties outside of our state.)
Many of these counties are running on a 286 or 386 machines that do
not have Windows installed on them.

We do have Windows versions of our products.  But many of our
customers simply do not have the need for them.

Every customer that uses the application (Delphi 1.0 app) I am
responsible for is running Windows 3.1 or 3.11.  None of them have the
hardware necessary for Windows 95.  And they aren't interested in
spending the money to upgrade, since the current hardware/software
solution works.

Lastly, not ONCE did I state that Borland shouldn't continue work on
Delphi97 (as referred to at BDC96).  I feel they should develop *both*
Delphi 1.5 and Delphi97.  If they do it right, they will benefit
financially from both products, and the developers will benefit as
well.

Just my $0.02 worth...

Jon Robertson

Jay Schwis

Delphi Developer
Sat, 03 Apr 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Re:What's Borland next 'marathon'? Delphi 3.0 or Delphi 1.5?


In article <53ij2s$...@reaper.uunet.ca>, From dg <dan...@arcos.org>,
the following was written:

Quote
> Doesn't it make sense if we look also at the past? How about
> our 16-bit small clients?

If you ask me Delphi 1.0 is still very hot and the premier 16 bit
development environment.  Just about anything you may want you can find
in third party components.

Some want Borland to add quickreport.  Heck you can get it now for 1.0
without waiting.  Many other components are there as well.

I am not sure what Borland can really add to the product when Microsoft
is pushing everybody to Win32.  Though many use VB and Foxpro you do not
see MS making new 16 bit versions of the products.  In fact, they too
are moving to Win32 only.

God Bless,

--
Jay Schwisow j...@weldnet.com
10/14/96 23:49
---------
Using: OUI PRO 1.5.0.2 from http://www.dvorak.com

David S. Becke

Delphi Developer
Sat, 03 Apr 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Re:What's Borland next 'marathon'? Delphi 3.0 or Delphi 1.5?


Jay Schwisow <j...@weldnet.com> wrote in article
<09960914233537.OUI24.j...@weldnet.com>...
[snip]

Quote
> I am not sure what Borland can really add to the product when Microsoft
> is pushing everybody to Win32.  Though many use VB and Foxpro you do not
> see MS making new 16 bit versions of the products.  In fact, they too
> are moving to Win32 only.

It's chilling sight to go to http://www.microsoft.com/products and realize
that Windows 3.1 is not on the list.  Ding-dong, the witch is dead...  (As
far as MS is concerned, at least!)

--
David S. Becker
ADP Dealer Services (Plaza R&D)
d...@plaza.ds.adp.com
(503)402-3236

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