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Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?


2005-08-21 06:21:53 PM
kylix0
On 2005-08-20, Robby Tanner < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote:
Quote
>>>have .NET support. Why? Strategic.
>>
>>Compare:
>>
>>A single release of D8 to compare to three releases of Kylix? Apples to
>>oranges?
>
>Apples and oranges, certainly, since .NET is probably _WAY_ more expensive
>than the three. Reworking the entire codegenerator alone. Brr.

I was referring only to the comparison of one release versus three release
of another.
And I explained that I made the comparison on cost, not headcount.
 
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

Quote
It's called Internal Rate of Return (IRR). A corporation establishes a
minimum return on investment (ROI) and anything that fails to meet the
criteria is cut in order to invest the limited capitol in other avenues that
are more likely to meet the IRR.

That is true for all costs that are permanently needed to offer some
product. But the investment needed before the first piece is sold, needs
to excluded, as this is lost anyway. With software the primary
investment of course always is by far the greatest part of the internal
cost. So any thought about IRR is useless, as it never would suggest to
drop a product.
-Michael
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

Quote
Also, Linux programmers are typically
looking for C/C++ solutions because that's what they're already using.

I don't think it's the language. Perl, Python and many other languages
are frequently used in the Linux world. Each has it's pros. The big pro
of Kylix is the RAD. But the big con is that it's programs only run on
one CPU architecture.This is not Linux-like at all.
Thus Chrome or Lazarus are much more interesting Delphi-language
products for the Linux community. (Even if Chrome is a windows based
cross compiler, Yak :) .)
-Michael
 

{smallsort}

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

On 2005-08-20, Larry Drews < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote:
Quote
>I'd be interested where I can find the reference for your view. Were
>they really in numbers or in (monetary turnover)? Since that would be
>a bit dangerous due to the severe pricehikes in the last few years.

Statements by John Kaster, and others from Borland. Annual and quarterly
financial reports filed by Borland with the Securities and Exchange
Commision.
Interesting, do you have references or specific quotes? Do they single out
the Delphi product line?
Quote
I have been monitoring DICE for the last year. Delphi positions/contracts
have risen steadily from 100 for the last 30 days to 200 for the last 30
days. That says to me that demand has increased 100% in one year!
If the ads for other languages have been constant, maybe yes. Otherwise
it might simply being DICE getting more popular.
Quote
I have been employed steadily as a Delphi programmer for the last 10 years.
There are people that have never been out of work as Cobol programmer in
30 years. bad metric for health of the platform.
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

"Simon Kissel" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message
Quote
>This is one thing I completely fail to understand. Why should you drop
>something
>because you can make more money on something else? Why not do BOTH?

It's called Internal Rate of Return (IRR). A corporation establishes a
minimum return on investment (ROI) and anything that fails to meet the
criteria is cut in order to invest the limited capitol in other avenues
that
are more likely to meet the IRR.
Ok. So this is established business practice. Still doesn't make sense,
though.
Sure it does and I just explained why but I'll try again. Put yourself in
their shoes, if you have a limited amount of capitol for your retirement,
are you going to invest it in a high-risk fund with low expected ROI or a
lower-risk one with a higher (and possibly established) rate of return? It
can really be that simple. The difference being if you make an obviously
poor choice for yourself and lose your nest egg, that's the extent of it.
If you're a CEO and do the same with a bunch of other folk's nest eggs, you
could face jail time. Although as we all know, sadly, it is hardly, if
ever, the case.
Quote
If you know that there is something that doesn't need any more investment
(initial
investments into Kylix all are done already), but only little resources to
be
kept alive, and the revenue generated by this is larger than that
permanent cost,
and you also know that other product lines are benefitting from this...
not
continuing Kylix still looks foolish.
Not if you actually take the perspective of the investor. It's a tough leap
when you like the product, but that's the sort of objectivity that leads to
these decisions. It doesn't matter if the "revenue generated is larger than
[the] permanent cost". As stated, even if that were the case, what matters
is not showing "a" profit, but "the" profit.
Furthermore (and I'm pulling this from memory), it seems to me that ongoing
development and support is more expensive than capitol expenditures many
times over. Could be wrong there, don't remember where I heard or read it,
feel free to prove me wrong. Certainly in the public sector it is easier to
find funding for capitol projects than for operations budgets.
Quote
Everything is speculation. And I know my speculation is right. Because I'm
a
developer with lots of Kylix and Linux insight, and know how much work is
involved.
This plus that the size of the team that initially developed Kylix in the
first place
is known.
Then, and I'm not being sarcastic here, you should approach Borland and
offer to do it. If your case is compelling, it is feasible that they'd make
a position for you. Alternatively, if you weren't interested, you could
assist someone else in building up the same case so they could get on there.
I find that claim still a little difficult to accept.
Quote
And regarding accounting types: You assume that Borland has a proper
management. You
Look, I've assumed nothing. Someone asked why a product that could be
profitable was retired. I answered. My answer has NOTHING to do
specifically with Borland at all. I made no comment on the quality or
"properness" of Borland's management, whatever you perceive that to be.
Quote
Sorry, but if Borland really had a management, accounting or a business
plan, then
they would also have had a road map. They could have announced that there
are
future plans for C++Builder, keep the customers etc.
In spite of how it may seem to we outsiders, companies, typically look years
down the road in terms of business plans. Does that plan change? Of course
and particularly in the IT sector, but they don't get to be the size they
are by arbitrarily choosing directions from day-to-day over coffee. I was
at a (VisualAge for) Java course at IBM where the instructor indicated that
they have a seven -year business plan. It's dynamic, but it's there.
Perhaps at one point the business plan didn't have a BCB and now it's been
reintroduced.
Quote
Borland management IS foolish. Heck, have you been living under a rock?
No, the source of our differing views is not my ignorance as you are
implying. I'll let some of my previous posts (in this thread even) speak
for that "Given the complaints surrounding BCB...", "there is a lot of user
dissatisfaction currently associated with BCB and the future is not really
clear" and "Having lurked around this newsgroup for a while (admittedly only
for a few months shy of a year or so), there are a few outstanding
criticisms regarding support, updates, communication, compiler and linker
updates, BOOST and STL (Ansi-???) compliance, the list goes on..". I
started{*word*154} around here about the time of the BDS/BCB anouncement and
got a pretty thorough history of the state of affairs in the community from
that.
Your dissatisfaction with the way you've been treated by the company is
obvious in your extensive discussion of management All of that aside, it
doesn't change some really basic business principles of which you might not
be aware but are in all likelihood being employed anyway. THAT'S what I am
discussing.
I wasn't talking specifically about Borland, it's internal organization,
logistics and methods of communication, protocols etc. I can only assume
you've been in the board room and seen the voodoo dolls, ritual sacrifices,
"Dumb Decision Dartboard" and Magic 8-balls used to finalize all agenda
items. I care not one bit about that, since I am neither defending nor
criticizing Borland's management or their decisions; YOUR assumption of
which has led you somewhat off-topic. Whether I know the specifics of how
Borland collects their stats, interprets its data, the document template
they use to present it and the color of the duo-tangs the reports are passed
around in is also irrelevant. Remove all references to Borland and
substitute "a corporation" and you'll find most (if not all) of what I've
stated is still consistent. I can also state with some certainty (not
complete though, notice that?), that amidst all the above-mentioned arcane
methods they MIGHT be employing, that somewhere in there you'll find some
form of information upon which management is making their decisions (be they
good, bad or otherwise).
Irrespective of whether you agree or not with the decisions, they are being
made with a series of data coming from analysis, planning, available budgets
and trends to name a few variables. In spite of your tirade against
Borland's management the validity of my initial statement stands, which I'll
retierate, only this time I'll try and make it generic, hopefully to
separate it from your disagreement with a specific instance of a
corporation:
In order to convince a company to invest money, you have to show clearly how
that company will benefit from the investment. Establishing that sort of
case is not easy, and even if you're right you still have to convince the
people who control the purse strings. While your standpoint may be obvious
to you, the onus still lies with you to convince those in power, because YOU
want the change.
Rob
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

"Michael Schnell" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message
Quote
>Also, Linux programmers are typically looking for C/C++ solutions because
>that's what they're already using.
>


I don't think it's the language. Perl, Python and many other languages are
frequently used in the Linux world. Each has it's pros. The big pro of
Kylix is the RAD. But the big con is that it's programs only run on one
CPU architecture.This is not Linux-like at all.
Of course you're right, I didn't mean to suggest it was the language, only
that there are already many options for Linux developers and for the most
part people are hard to bump in to other areas once they are comfortable
with something.
Good point about the CPU architecture as well.
Rob
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

"juliusz" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message
Quote
Robby Tanner wrote:
>
>If it's so obvious, I suggest that the proponents get together and submit
>a business plan to Borland. If the evidence is that compelling then the
>company would be foolish not to look at it.


Don't take me wrong, but I think it is just inconceivable to suggest that
users of a bug-ridden product should write a business plan for a software
vendor,
Back to the initial dissertation, if the user community wants Borland to put
money in to Kylix, it has to prove some benefit to the corporation.
Quote
In my opinion Borland should promptly either update the product and
restore the advertised cross-platform capabilities in Delphi/Kylix *or*
provide urgent fixes to the current product, stop selling it, and provide
an exit-strategy to all effected customers.
I don't disagree.
Quote
I don't think that "wait and see" current policy is an acceptable business
plan.
Nor did I suggest that's what was going on. Kylix has probably been written
out of the plan, which is why it's sitting in limbo.
Quote
A true business plan among other things should include not only usual
profit/loss and risk analysis on potential Kylix revitalization, but also
an assessment how much Borland can loss, if continue to do nothing in that
regard.. "Wait and see and do nothing"
Agreed. There is nothing to suggest they haven't (or is there?). The
analysis may be flawed, but I'm betting something of that nature was done.
I suppose it is possible that Kylix is such a relatively small portion of
the revenue streams that it was canned without a very extensive analysis.
Quote
perhaps for the moment is convenient for Borland, but in my opinion it is
extremely damaging to those who standardized on Kylix and devastating to
the small industry which started to form around Kylix and cross-platform
development for Linux and Windows with Delphi/Kylix.
Which is also probably true. Unfortunately, it is because it is a "small
industry" that Kylix is not getting the resources it could and that we'd
like it to.
Rob
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

"Dave Nottage [TeamB]" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in
message news:4308542d$ XXXX@XXXXX.COM ...
Quote
juliusz wrote:

>Don't take me wrong, but I think it is just inconceivable to suggest
>that users of a bug-ridden product should write a business plan for a
>software vendor, so the software vendor may be incline to fix bugs
>and limitation with own product.

The business plan would not be in order to fix bugs and limitations,
but to sell the product. Being able to sell the product would
facilitate fixing bugs etc.

Of course it's not the users responsibility to come up with a plan,
however if someone has some ideas that would help, I'm sure Borland
would like to hear it.
Yes and no. If you want something, it IS your responsibility to come up
with ways of achieving it and putting them in motion. Now, I wasn't
suggesting it was the users' responsibility to do Borland's admin and
financial work anymore than anyone was obligated to come up with the JEDI
PROJECT or sundry other projects (BOOST, for example). However, if a
revitalization of Kylix is what is desired, it behooves the community to
convince the people with the money (and ownership of the code) to do so;
irrespective of the form of that entreaty; a plan, an open letter or
petition from the community, a virtual suggestion box, what have you...
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

"Michael Schnell" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message
Quote
>It's called Internal Rate of Return (IRR). A corporation establishes a
>minimum return on investment (ROI) and anything that fails to meet the
>criteria is cut in order to invest the limited capitol in other avenues
>that are more likely to meet the IRR.
>

That is true for all costs that are permanently needed to offer some
product.
I'm assuming you mean ongoing operational and support costs.....
Quote
But the investment needed before the first piece is sold, needs to
excluded, as this is lost anyway.
I'm not so sure about that. I believe it's embedded somehow over the
expected lifetime of the investment; taking in to account other such things
as inflation. Maybe IRR is the wrong term, but I'm quite sure at any rate
that the capitol cost is somehow embedded in ROI evaulations.
The two defintions I found are:
"Often used in capital budgeting, it's the interest rate that makes net
present value of all cash flow equal zero."
"Essentially, this is the return that a company would earn if they expanded
or invested in themselves, rather than investing that money abroad."
Both seem to infer a consideration of capitol expenditures or investment..
Quote
With software the primary investment of course always is by far the
greatest part of the internal
By primary, do you mean development costs?
Quote
cost. So any thought about IRR is useless, as it never would suggest to
drop a product.
Given your suppositions, it would also never suggest NOT to develop a
product. However, I'm not convinced. Even excluding capital investment,
support costs can continue long after people have stopped purchasing
licenses.
If it cost $1,000,000 to develop something and revenues were $100/month
while operations cost only $50/month, I'm pretty sure the project would not
go ahead. Ignoring inflation, it would take 20,000 months to reach the
break-even point, in spite of the fact that you're making 100% profit/month.
However, in 20,000 months (or 1666.67 years), at even 1% inflation, to
payback the intial $ 1,000,000 will cost about 16 trillion
($15,933,237,960,765.79) because $ 1,000,000 in 3672 will be worth the
equivilant of 6 cents today.
We might be saying the same thing but in different terms. It's been a while
since I looked at accounting.
Rob
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

Marco van de Voort < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in
Quote

There are people that have never been out of work as Cobol programmer
in 30 years. bad metric for health of the platform.

Not for Cobol programmers. I could not care less is Delphi takes over the
computing world. As long as I can stay employed doing work that I enjoy,
Delphi is enough of a success for me. How many jobs do you need?
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

Quote

I was referring only to the comparison of one release versus three release
of another.

1) delphi is 8 kylix was 3. More difficult for a new product than a mature
one
2) try to check timeframe between 1st and 3rd release of kylix
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

Kylix is not for linux geeks, as it has a lot of things against the "linux
way". Kylix is for windows programmers willing to have a linux version of
their products. Probably most important thing for those is the server-side
part of the game: web/datasnap servers, database access etc, as the
commercial side of linux is mostly server-side (look at who is selling on
linux: Oracle with databases, IBM with websphere&Co, but noone on client
side software)
So borland could make a server-side-only renewed release of kylix, that
could cost a lot less than a full renewed version (and where the money is),
and then support the community work on bugfixing and renewing the client
side.
My 2(euro)cents
"siegfriedn" <sniedinger@yahoodotcodotuk>ha scritto nel messaggio
Quote
This is my reply post from the delphi non technical group, but have not
had a reply from JK there, so I am posting it here where it is more
appropriate..

John Kaster (Borland) wrote:

>
>We wanted to make money from Kylix. You are welcome to suggest a
>"different business model" that will make money from Kylix.
>

Thank you for the invitation :)

From the positive hype in the early days of Kylix that was clear and the
future looked bright...you came sooo close.. Kylix is still usable today
even with it's based on a very old linux distributions, so the argumnts
that one cannot have a binary only solution on Linux is not very accurate.

I am not really the person to give you advice on a suitable business
model, but these are just some ideas..

If you have limited resources try to open source (perhaps with a dual
license like Trolltech - commercial license for closed commercial
application and free for GPL applications)

- Make all the CLX source available - (it could be abstracted to support
other GUI toolkits like win32, GTK+, wxWidgets, etc to achieve a native
look) - let the community maintain and develop it under Borland
management. (Probably what you are trying to do with the FreeCLX community
project?)

- Create a 'classic' minimalistic IDE as suggested by someone else. Open
source this IDE and release under a suitable license agreement. The core
architechture for this IDE has to be based on pluaggability - according to
Borland standards. (Almost like Eclipse)

How Borland makes money..
-------------------------

- Sell component packs for example the additional components which are in
the Enterprise edition only.

- Sell IDE plugins for example the SDO/ALM intergration stuff, ECO etc..

- Sell an official shrink rapped 'stable' version of Kylix to corporate
customers with all the Borland goodness and support prepackaged. (Like Sun
with Open Office and StarOffice)


Hope you find it useful :)

siegs
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

Quote
Given your suppositions, it would also never suggest NOT to develop a
product.
It would. But once the cost for developing it are spent (and you need to
monthly pay the the bank for it), stopping to sell the product would not
reduce the cost.
Of course developing a new version of some existing software is a mix.
It does need some development cost, but of course most of the
development for the product has been done for the previous version. Thus
the choice is to sell nothing (no return at all) or to invest in what
is some 10% of the development and hope for continuing return for 100%.
-Michael
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

Roberto Icardi wrote:
Quote
(look at who is selling on
linux: Oracle with databases, IBM with websphere&Co, but noone on
client side software)
Not exactly true. There are some very high dollar electronic design
packages that are available and fairly popular for Linux.
Jeff.
 

Re:Re: How can Borland make from with Kylix?

"Jeff Wormsley" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >ha scritto nel messaggio
Quote
Roberto Icardi wrote:

>(look at who is selling on
>linux: Oracle with databases, IBM with websphere&Co, but noone on
>client side software)

Not exactly true. There are some very high dollar electronic design
packages that are available and fairly popular for Linux.

Jeff.
But this cannot probably move interest of a kylix buyer as, for example,
create an application server running on a linux box.