Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft to Buy Rational and/or Borland?
oblivious writes "I got this in e-mail this evening: According to a Reuters report that crossed the wires late today, the speculation is that Microsoft will make bids to buy both Rational and Borland. Shares of both Rational and Borland are up on the news, and so far both IBM and Microsoft have no comment on this report." We recently ran a story about IBMs planned purchase of Rational. Chris didn't make clear in here - it's not that Microsoft might buy both, but that Borland might be a likely target, if a bid to buy Rational out from under IBM fails, which it is likely too. Rational and IBM have signed the substantive portion of the agreement already, so any sort of counter bid would have some fun legal consequences for all involved.
first fist is when you fist someone first in quake 3 arena
free (as in mp3s) electronic music
Please don't take away my C++ Builder... :(
Nothing would be worse than M$ buying borland. It would be the end of JBuilder--a fantastic java IDE. Not to mention delphi and KYLIX! This would be B*A*D.
---gralem
At least if MS purchases them they can once again become profitable (and successful) companies.
?-|||-----x<*))))><
There is no way this ends up good, if MS makes the sale. But here's a question. At what point does MS own too much of the computing world? With MS buying Borland and Rational, does this signify the end developments for other OS's? If not this, then how much more does MS need to buy before they do own practically everything.
I have no friends. Will you be my friend?
well, there goes the only two companies left that support non-MS technologies in the corporate world. (to a multi-national open source is a joke, don't go there).
If you want to keep your high-paying tech job, get a jar of vaseline, because microsoft is preparing to fuck you long and hard deep into the night. Unless you're female, in which case you might not need the vaseline.
Do not rape my Borland! I can't live without their tools. Just thinking about how microsoft would bastardize their wonderful software makes me ill!
You like my new account? Just for you!
Considering that Borland's Kylix is a strong solution for cross-platform develoment on both Windows and Linux (not just for Delphi either - from what I hear, the latest versions include Borland's C/C++ compiler) this could be a real blow. I mean, what's the likelyhood of Microsoft carrying on development of Kylix ?
Then again, there was that story recently about Microsoft getting into Linux software development...
Excellent! Where can I pre order Visual Pascal?
Microsoft will make bids to buy both Rational and Borland
;-)
If MS buys Borland they would become a Java Addict and Linux Software Producer (Kylix, JBuilder). I doubt this would happen so soon
If this is true, they've obviously decided to really flip the bird to the courts...
MS buys Borland: Bye bye kylix
MS buys Rational: Sue any open source that provides anything similar to rational products, or uses anything rational may have patented
- We are the slashdot. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be moderated -
They may become profitable again, but then again, would YOU buy a bloated version of JBuilder?
I HATE Visio for UML, and anything that encourages more UML usage in VS.NET is a good thing. Besides that, the horrific pricing for the Rational Suite should come down.
I want Rose free in my MSDN subcription!
Microsoft pass GO and get 200$
-Bob
Didn't Microsoft hire everyone away from Borland in like 1994?
Why are you all worried that companies that support other OS's are being bought by M$....It's alright, it will be ok....we just read on monday that M$ was going to be developing for linux now.
I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence. Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1845
They've already signed an agreement for IBM to buy Rational.
I D= 8361
http://www.rational.com/news/press/pr_view.jsp?
The story is first picked up by Reuters, and then by SlashDot, and then by News.COM, and then MSNBC, at which point every Joe Schmoe is yelling "BUY! BUY!" to their broker.
Can't you see: slashdot is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I was on the Borland Developer Network page yesterday and found this article on Borland's upcoming .NET IDE.
.NET development environment. Such a product could suit application developers that want to leverage .NET and the best applications from many vendors."
.NET IDE I know of today is SharpDevelop, which feels sluggish on my P3 1.2GHz. Anyone know of others?
"Borland plans to offer an alternative to Microsoft's Visual Studio
The only other
Though how easily this would go down with the regulatory bodies in Europe and the States I'm not sure... Rational again is probably fair enough, but Borland... not much chance (fingers crossed).
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
Next Headline : Microsoft buys C# and Visual Studio. In their attempt to own the world, Microsoft accidentally bought something they already own! Who watches for these kind of things?
If there were any rumor about MS thinking about bidding for both Rational and Borland as part of the same universe (and bear in mind that even the separate rumors are just rumors), it would surely have been in the first paragraph of Reuters' story, instead of what is (Rational), which is the more important rumor of the two.
This is pure speculation on my part. But considering MS's stance on Linux, and supporting non-MS operating systems, would they kill cross-platform support?
I don't know how many customers Rational has that are using the Windows version of their SW (eg: ClearCase & ClearQuest), versus the Linux & Unix versions. Is there enough income coming in to encourage MS to support other platforms?
And as far as Borland is concerned, I would expect the Kylix to get knifed quickly since it's prob not a significant source of revenue.
I could see how IBM buying Rational would be good for Linux & the community. But MS buying Rational seems like a way for MS to kill off a bunch of viable products on non-MS platforms.
Thoughts?
Obviously, im not the only one to point this out but.. If MS where to buy Borland, that would make life of the Kylix in Linux quite unstable. While kylix is allready in its second phase and we havent seen massive amounts of free and/or proprietary software build with it, its still microsoft acting against certain market..
Also, Borland products are competing with Visual Studio series, and allthou i havent used anything from Rational (nor from VisualStudio), i guess MS has data modelling tools just like Rational... Yey! Good for competition..
yush
IBM plans to buy Rational? IBM is just needs shareholder approval (from Rational) and the government to approve it.
Somebody must be playing rumors to have the stock go up or something.
The truth is, Microsoft may be interested in acquiring Borland, but Borland is most probably not interested in being sold to Microsoft. Anyway, if it was even a remote possibility, Oracle at the very least would step in.
To our valued customers:
.NET, and others.
We are delighted to tell you that IBM and Rational Software have announced a definitive agreement for IBM to purchase Rational. This is a very exciting time for both companies and builds on the extensive business relationship IBM and Rational have had for over 20 years. Most importantly, it will provide significant benefits to you.
If you've been using Rational's solution to build business applications to automate your business, you will appreciate the combination of Rational's solution with IBM's e-business strategy. IBM helps customers integrate their business processes and software infrastructures to build an on-demand e-business. This requires the integration of software development, transaction management, data management, collaboration, and systems management and security. With Rational's demonstrated strength in software development, IBM will offer leading solutions in each of these categories and provide a complete solution for creating an on-demand e-business. This includes broad support for your application development efforts for a variety of environments, including J2EE,
If you've been using Rational's solution to build software for software products and systems, you'll enjoy the benefits of an improved solution through the combination of IBM and Rational technology. Rational's outstanding solution in this space will be amplified through synergies with IBM's pervasive computing strategy. This is an important market for IBM, and Rational is key to IBM's software strategy. Whether you're building a software product, a technical system, real-time software, or embedded software, IBM will be able to provide you with industry-leading products, services and support.
Rational will become the fifth division in IBM Software Group (joining WebSphere, DB2, Lotus, and Tivoli) and retain its brand identity. The division will be led by Mike Devlin, Rational's current CEO.
As with other business acquisitions of this nature, this one will require government regulatory approval and the approval of Rational's shareholders.
IBM and Rational are impressive as separate entities. Together, with our complementary software strategies, people talents, and commitment to customer success, we can provide you with even more value.
Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to expanding our relationship with you in the future.
Best regards,
Steve Mills
Senior Vice President & Group Executive
IBM Software Group
Michael Devlin
CEO
Rational Software
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why is Rational considering a sale to another corporation, anyway? Do they just need a boost, or are they a sinking ship?
Lazarus
- The Free Software Delphi!
Actually Rational took over Pure and Atria. And their flagship products ClearCase and RationalRose are two outstanding products in software engineering - not to mention MultiSite and various other Quality Process tools.
Rational, Pure and Atria have been successful companies all along, actually. And they have a good reputation with their mvfs that really works like a champ on about 10 different platforms, pooor Windows included.
J#Builder
Turbo Pascal.NET
Wouldn't either of these deals be blocked by the authorities? Like when MS tried to boy Quicken.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Irrational Rose?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sheesh! This is getting way out of hand, and the government really needs to step in and do something.
Micro$oft has been on a buying spree recently. Rareware was one of its more recent aquisitions, much to my horror. They had good games; now, I'll avoid them on general principle.
M$ is trying to expand by assimilation. Don't have the tools/knowledge/brains/experience to corner a market? Just buy someone who does! If they don't sell, drive them out of business!
This chain will only end with complete Microsoft control of the world- literally- or M$ gets broken up. The government has to step in and cause the second.
Microsoft's "Buy Or Kill" strategy is, unfortunately, an effective one. Destroy all competition, by taking what they have, if possible; expand to new markets by buying the leader of the industry.
End result? A Microsoft monopoly on almost every technological market.
*whimper*
Warning: Poster of this comment is a nerd. Just like everybody else here.
Slashdot is very confusing to me (not necessarily your post, but the conflicting most prevalent message). On the one hand Microsoft is doomed as the purportedly superior Linux/Apache/MySQL/Postgresql stomps its way into the hearts and mind of shops everywhere, but on the other hand Microsoft is an evil monopoly that must be stopped. These points are absolutely contradictory: If Microsoft is under an imminent threat by open source/freeware then they are not a monopoly.
Pick your prophecy people: If you claim in one post that Microsoft is doomed, then you must forever disagree with any claims that they are a monopoly.
Now nobody will say that MS does not innovate.
All of Borland's and Rationale's innovations are belong to MS!
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
0.47 seconds
I am a Java programmer myself (laugh it up), but Swing just plain annoys me.
Are you on drug(s)?!! Why not?
Programming language products were not part of the anti-trust legal action against MS.
Windows, the OS, was.
This news brought to you via your XBox home media center, by MSNBC.
No, we're not a monopoly yet. Nothing to worry about. Go back to playing your game made by Rare.
What, like Corel, right?
Acquisition by Microsoft will mean the END of their competing suites--BC++, Jbuilder, Delphi and Kylix. It won't make Borland profitable, but it will contribute to the profit of Microsoft.
Didn't IBM already sign something with Rational.. because: this link thinks they did
Rational's home page states the following:
"IBM and Rational Software Sign Agreement for IBM to Acquire Rational"
In the FAQ:
"IBM and Rational Software Corp. today announced the two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire the equity of Rational at a price of approximately $2.1 billion in cash or $10.50 per share."
A definitive agreement? Doesn't sound as though M$ can buy Rational, does it?
a few months ago granting them literally a pound of flesh from anyone who installed Turbo Pascal Builder.
.NET) require. ;)
that's a pretty cheap price for anyone using Turbo Pascal Builder. i would expect you to sign away your soul as the C# development tools (Visual Studio
Funny. Rational seems to think that they are being bought buy IBM and IBM seems to concur.
IBM buying Rational makes since their Websphere is truly a multi-platform entity. By takingover Rational, MS would effectively remove the last vestiges of true multi-platform development - in their own unique dirty manner.
Having been a Borland tool user since Borland was invented, I'm sure that Delphi could become the JBuilder of .net. This makes a lot of companies interested in buying Borland - for each their reasons: IBM, Sun, Microsoft. One thing is sure: Fuller's own future looks bright, no matter who he sells to.
Well, M$ already has Anders Hejlsberg - the
chief architect/inventor of both Delphi and
C#. I guess it was only a matter of time...
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras
Actually, this story is more accurate.
First this is jusr rumors and speculations.
Second, Borland will likely become an acquisition target for MS ONLY in the event that IBM complete the acquisition of Rational.
If MS do acquire Borland, that will be funny (and painful at the same time). They would acquire a bunch of very popular Java products! And the UML tool (which is the thing they are the most interested in) is written in Java! What will they do with it... convert it to C#?
An interesting thought is that the question of Microsoft making cross-platform compilers now is a serious one.
Microsoft in buying Borland aquires not only a UML modelling tool (Borland recently aquired TogetherSoft). But, they also purchase one of the better Java vendors out there. This move is both offensive and defensive. M$ gains a UML modelling environment while simultaneously killing off a significant segment of the Java tools industry.
If Microsoft pursues Rational as well they end up with the 2 best UML tools in the industry and kill off IBM's strategic partner. The net effect is that Microsoft wins big.
However, I can't believe that M$' shareholders would agree that both purchases are necessary. I expect that if Microsoft is unable to sway Rational over then we will see them make a serious bid for Borland. After all its the UML modelling software that MS wants, and if the IBM purchase of Rational goes through then MS has no modeller for their developers.
Seeing as IBM is a large player in open source software (Apache/Eclipse/Linux) and Java I personally hope to see the Rational purchase succeed, however, M$ has a crap load of cash sitting on hand - if M$ wants to start a bidding war they certainly have the ability to.
And so the consolidation in the industry continues.
Plus, Borland just bought StarBase, which produces the StarTeam SCM system, as seen in this press release. (Wow, just look at the way the Borland logo is plastered all over the StarBase website!)
So with Rational and Borland, they knock out 2 competitors in the SCM market!
Now we see the basis for Bobby Schmidt's "Hell Freezes Over" column in the latest CUJ. The next Visual C++ is standards-compliant by vacuuming up a quality comptetitor...
No, that's a troll.
But Borland has a lot of Java product, and owning that would help to maneuver it out of the C# path...
No, that's a troll, too...
Borland's CLX library has the potential to do what QT could not, popularize GUI-applications that run under 'Doze and X, so you could blunt that attempt to compete if you owned the product... (seriously, I can't name a single application on the local CompUSA shelf using QT, please educate me)
No, that's YAT (Yet Another Troll)
The fact that the DOJ is a singleton-class, MS server application running inside the Beltway box means that MS can do whatever the fsck it likes and laugh about it...
Ah, now that is a sufficiently gratuitous troll...
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Didn't M$ already buy out the Borland's better developers, like, 4 years ago?
Then again, after 4 years of M$ crap, and I'm sure they're burnt-to-a-crisp, time to get a fresh supply....
Wouldn't MS have to scrap/shelve JBuilder under its agreements/court-ordered restrictions in the Sun case?
.Net development offerings?
I'm sure if Borland was entertaining an MS offer, other companies would consider buying it knowing that it was up for sale. Oracle, Sun, and IBM are obvious choices, but there are others. I don't think Larry Ellison would mind a true merge of their Java tools, and what better way to stick it to MS than to outdo their
After reading the article the title should probably read Microsoft to Buy Rational or Borland since the plan sounds like if they can't nix IBM getting Rational, they'll try to buy Borland so that they have some sort of counterbalance.
No artist tolerates reality. -- Nietzsche
Microsoft Delphi, Microsoft Delphi, Microsoft Delphi...
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
even more last ditch efforts buy FraUDuleNT payper liesense peddlers to suck just a few dollars more, out of J.'s already nearly empty pockets, with their ill eagle stock markup FraUD scams.
LIEk dinosaurs, duking IT out for the last few moresells of mutton, unfortunate enough to be in proximity of the tarpits....
happy holidaze. nothing gnu about that crud.
The Borland/MS rumor seems to appear every few years. I would imagine that the attempted merger would be scrutinized by the feds as this would give MS a sizeable monopoly in the computer language field.
Roughly 2 months ago Borland bought StarBase, makers of StarTeam (a SCM system) which is a direct competitor to Rational's ClearCase as well as Microsoft's horrible SourceSafe.
I've often wondered when MS was going to step it up and take over the SCM world, maybe this is the first volley?
Well, now that Unix/Linux users have an easy an effective RAD with C++/Pascal support and with tons of features (Im talking about Kylix of course) M$ is trying to buy it.
Is this not ilegal?
I still remember the news "Netscape X Explorer" and the end of the history too.
And now the fight is Delphi X VB, well it seams the M$ found a different way to solve its problmes.
You better watch out Bill or else you will get sued using your monopoly position! Hah you'll never win when there is justice!
Microsoft is going about this "taking over the world" thing all wrong. Why don't they just offer Linus 10 billion dollars for the rights to Linux?
Now I am simply waiting to here a break-in announcement from Bill Gates that
he has declared himself the world's emperor.
Steve Ballmer at Internal M$ meeting:
"The US Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have
just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the government
permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept
away."
Employee: "But that's impossible. How will the Emperor maintain
control without the bureaucracy?"
Ballmer: "The regional sales managers now have direct control over their
territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of our software."
Compaq buying DEC was bad enough. Microsoft buying Borland is horrible. I remember in the early 90's it was like "Wow, Microsoft makes a compiler too? No thanks, I will stick to Borland", and now it's like "Wow, Borland is still in buisiness". What is left for all of the tech giants of the past like Cray, DEC (err Compaq, no HP), Borland. IBM's only saving grace is that they were quite diversified, and MSFT will never be able to topple them.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
TurboPascal, TurgoProlog... Those were the days. Everything was so... simple.
I was just speculating about this with a friend who works at Rational last night. I could even see IBM acquiring Borland, which might (ironically enough) have fewer anti-trust problems than Microsoft acquiring Borland.
Things can change very quickly. When I started at Lotus in 1990, there was a "Welcome Novell" banner in the lobby, since the two companies were all set to merge. So much for THAT.
my experience with rational rose is that it is mostly useful as a tool to keep incompetent project managers busy clicking on spiffy looking icons. it would be good if someone came up with a modeling tool that would approach the efficiency of my whiteboard and the pub's napkins. anybody know whether there are projects getting anywhere?
Laurent
Dev elpizw tipota, dev phoboumai tipota eimai lephteros http://euclidian.org
To Our Valued Inner Circle Customers:
.Net,
I am delighted to tell you that IBM and Rational Software have announced a
definitive agreement for IBM to purchase Rational. This is a very exciting
time for both companies and builds on the extensive business relationship
we have had for over 20 years.
You and other Inner Circle customers are telling us that you need to
further integrate your application development environment. This
acquisition will allow IBM to give you the tools to develop, integrate and
manage your business processes. Rational's software development platform
-- including software engineering best practices and products for analysis,
modeling, development, testing and configuration management -- complements
IBM's WebSphere application development tools to help customers develop
higher quality software in less time.
Rational's solid leadership capabilities in application lifecycle
management tools, along with IBM's industry-leading e-business
infrastructure products, makes for a winning combination. IBM and Rational
share a common objective in providing customers with best practices, tools,
and services designed to improve individual developer productivity and
overall application development efficiency. Customers can begin using
Rational's solutions at any stage of e-business adoption, which can
increase the productivity and success of your development projects.
IBM provides the most comprehensive set of e-business technologies and
product offerings in the industry. IBM middleware interoperates across the
broadest set of platforms used in enterprises today. We will continue to
develop the Rational solutions for multiple platforms, including
J2EE, Linux and real-time/embedded systems. The next logical progression
of e-business adoption is to systematically integrate systems and
applications across enterprises, which is where Rational offers great value
when combined with IBM software.
IBM intends to retain the Rational brand and establish the Rational
division within IBM Software Group led by Mike Devlin, Rational's current
CEO. As with other business acquisitions of this nature, this one will
require government regulatory approval and the agreement of Rational's
shareholders.
IBM and Rational are impressive as separate entities. Together, with our
complementary e-business technologies and commitment to customer success,
we can provide even greater value to you.
Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to expanding our
relationship with you in the future.
Best regards,
this is getting old and so are you
blog
The next Visual C++ is standards-compliant by vacuuming up a quality comptetitor...
For Microsoft, this is standards-compliant.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Microsoft can't buy Forte or Eclipse. If they eliminate Borland's products, that will simply reduce the fragmentation of non-Microsoft development tools--not necessarily a bad thing.
This is the pattern that Microsoft and Intel both have repeatedly run through:
- find a company
whose software helps you develop software, or web pages, or what have you
- buy that company
- make future relaeases that only work on
Windows
as the software rot makes the old versions fail, users of that software are herded towards Windows.- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
big blue says YAHOO for India. looks like o-s gets some hyperhype there.
so long fuddles, take ALL of your felonious greed/fear/?pr? based stock markup payper liesense FraUD peddlers with you, as you dissolve into another shameful chapter in the history of BiG "business".
This will make me stop using Borland C++ Builder and all of its similar products in its entirety. The whole purpose (for me) of using Borland's IDE is to get away from using Microsoft's, that and I beleive it's a better product with an unfortunately smaller than monopoly-sized market share. Borland, if you sell, that's your business. Microsoft, if you buy, you won't get any customers who won't run from you as soon as possible.
It also gives MS a chance to hurt Linux, which Borland has been supporting in recent years with JDeveloper and Kylix.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
So if IBM closes its deal, more than likely causing Microsoft to take Boreland, where does that leave people who use Kylix and the other nice cross platform things that Boreland has to offer? Or should the question be, how soon would Microsoft end all of that upon closing its deal. It would be funny though if a MSFT product still supported making programs in Linux.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
Microsoft's old strategy of killing competitors by buying them doesn't work with open source. Sorry, Bill.
Does anyone know how to make an anti-trust complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice?
Hell, the got the top Borland dev, Anders Hejlsberg, by paying him $1 million to come on board and they're sitting on ~$40 billion, so why not?
doug
This will almost certainly be opposed by the Justice Dept. At the very least I think they would require MS to either continue or spin off the Java and Linux products. Of course, since Kylix make little money, spinning it off would be the same as killing it.
Lower your shields and surrender your software.
From the article in respect to M$ rumored bid - "That pushed the stock up, indicating that investors are betting there could be some sort of bidding war for the company, the traders said."
M$ doesn't care to own either of the companies. I belive they're driving up the cost of the Rational acquisition for IBM by floating rumors that they're goign to jump into the mix. The Boreland rumor adds some credibility to the rumor of a M$ bid for Rational because it looks like M$ has a backup plan. In reality they'll drive the price of Rational up, let IBM pay big bucks for it, and then announce or leak that Boreland just wasn't worth acquiring thereby devaluing the Boreland stock.
And yes... I do believe that the Unmarked Black Helicopters run Palladium.
I'm sure this will be modded down as a troll or flamebait but to be honest, when you have the java toolset from Sun and an editor such as vi/emacs that works on multiple platforms as well, who cares?
The most respected and competent developers I know aren't tied down to an IDE for development nor a UML modeller. Most can code everything by hand with carefully thought out documentation and user request and it isn't because it's elite or the spartan thing to do, we just know what we are doing... (You don't need broiler plate/template/wizard code until you know how to write your own, otherwise YOU WILL SUFFER)
The way I see it this is really a blessing in disguise as you remove point and click tools for development you remove the ability for the market to be flooded by people who really don't know what they are doing anyway OR you get in increase in competent programs because they now HAVE to know what they are doing. (OK, that last part was in a perfect world scenario)
I thought Microsoft bit off more than it could chew when it bought the Catholic church.
Is this thing on? Hello?
That's it for windows programming. Microsoft will have aboslutely everything. They're going to buy and shut it down.
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
I am a lameness filter remover. I am a lameness filter remover. I am a lameness filter remover. This is not the karma you are looking for.
I'm glad you said this. there is still room in the world for companies that do not break the law and still be successful. kudos to borland, raspberries to micro$oft.
1. Sell to IBM
...." post.)
2. Sell to M$
3. Profit * 2
(Sorry I had to do this - I just couldn't think of a "In Soviet Russia,
That's pretty funny that your post got modded as a Troll.
Market consolidation will not help anyone in this case and no, this will not get anyone off their butt and think about buying other tools. Well, ok maybe some would, but not in the business place. If M$FT buys Borland and pulls the plug on "products that are not in the core business" then those who can't just stick with an old version will be forced to move to M$FT approved development tools.
In other words, Microsoft can likely only outbid IBM if IBM chooses to allow such to happen. (Which is a very likely outcome if there is a bidding war. Neither IBM nor Microsoft is run by idiots. Nor is either company likely to bid more for Rational than management at each respective company thinks Rational is worth.)
1. MS buys Borland
2. ??
3. Profit!!!!!!
Since Anders Hejlsberg, the Danish creator of Turbo Pascal was pinched by Borland by Microsoft to be the chief architect of C# and the Common Language Infrastructure used by .NET, perhaps Microsoft will decide to go the whole hog and get the rest of the company too? Borland had (has?) some of the best developers in the field and may be worth buying just for them.
Let us not forget how Borland shot themselves in the foot not once, but twice, in the early 90s. As of late 1992, Borland had 80%-85% of the Windows C++ development platform and it was a windows product. Microsoft had a DOS-based IDE known as C7.0. and no more than 5%-10% of the C++ market. Symantec had the remainder. All together, Microsoft & Symantec totalled whatever Borland didn't have. Early in '93, Microsoft came out with Visual C++ 1.0, which came on twenty(!) diskettes.
You're probably asking yourself, "How did Borland shoot themselves? Isn't this a situation ripe for Microsoft to knock Borland with a kidney punch?" Um, no. Borland used a class framework known as OWL I. Microsoft had MFC 1.0. MFC basically sucked because there wasn't anything there worth using but there was one quality missing from OWL which existed in MFC: upward compatibility. When OWL II came out, all of the marketplace which developed OWL I-based code was either going to upgrade [manually] to OWL-II (Borland had a conversion tool but it sucked and essentially didn't work), stay put, or take some time to reevaluate the market. Most firms took the latter option. Within a year or two, Borland was diving in the C++ market because they had nothing to compete with. That takes care of bullet #1.
Bullet #2: dBase. In the early 90s, Borland purchased Ashton-Tate for a single purpose: dBase. dBase (and compatible clones) ruled the desktop world. With Windows 3.0 (and 3.1 in May 1992) looking to put a stranglehold on the desktop, Borland decided to get dBase, create dBase for Windows, and watch the $$$ roll in. They purchased Ashton-Tate, shut down the other products (making a lot of customers their best friends), and started spinning their wheels. In the meantime, Microsoft is working on the second phase of Access for Windows. (there was a pathetic first pass a few years earlier) Microsoft puts Access for Windows on sale in November 1992 for $99. Even if it becomes shelfware, for $99, no one could afford to pass it up. Everyone's developing all of these nifty little Access applications while Borland's limping around with a bullet hole in one foot, take aim at the other foot, and trying to write code, all at the same time. By the time dBase for Windows comes out, there's no room in the market for it. BANG! Bullet #2. Now Borland has to decide what to do next: find another product market, grow another foot to shoot at, count the stars in the sky, or watch the clouds go by.
So this ends our session of "Why Does Borland Limp?"
umm...is it just me or does borland produce the lead competitors to MS dev tools.....sooo....I do not even see that getting pasted the FTC.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Hard drive ID, double key lookups....
IBM's "planned" available of Rational isn't just "planned." It's actually done. I'd suggest that maybe you guys missed it, but, well, you know.
...Rational, maybe they could actualy produce a rational thought. Then, they'd realize that they're making a crappy product and fix things.
Of course, that particular dream isn't really rational, is it...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
If I had a karma point for every time there was a rumor about someone making a takeover bid for Borland, I'd have achieved total enlightenment by now.
Remember 10 years ago, when we were sure Novell would follow its purchase of DR DOS with a takeover of Borland and proceed to smash Microsoft into, well, micro-bits?
Then there was the time Old Lou's Big Blue was about to announce the purchase of Novell and Borland in the same press release. (At the time, Novell still owned Unix and everyone knew that Windows didn't stand a chance against OS/2.)
Of all the many rumors, the only one that turned out to be true was the Corel deal - and even that ultimately didn't materialize.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
IBM made this announcement internally (I'm an IBM employee) almost a week ago. IBM, like most companies, only makes these kinds of announcements when things are very well on their way, and the purchase price and other large profile details have already been worked out; usually it's just pending some the working out of certain legal details. M$ rumors or anything else will not change that.
I can no longer read Dilbert. It's too depressing, because it is too real. -- Hyperhaplo
MS will state that they are buying Borland in order to acquire the UML modelling functionality.
.NET and Linux.
They are (my speculation only) privately salivating at the chance to squelch the Kylix CLX class libraries.
These components allow for cross desktop development on Win32,
CLX existence makes it is inevitable that Office like apps will arrive that will run on any of the three platforms.
Interchangeable apps (no cross platform learning curve) make the op sys irrelevant.
This makes WalMart Lindows the Op Sys of choice.
MS public statement > "we need Borland in order to compete with IBM"
MS private statement -> "you will not see cross platform desktop apps in the near future (we are really competing with Walmart)"
This shows that no one has faith on .Not the market is adopting and using Java Platform.
MS is doing the same as usual by buying Borland they think they can dent Java well they are so wrong.
MS == evil emipre
Ugh, it is the worst development environment I have ever used. VCL is so full of hacks and other rubbish I'd rather go back to MFC if forced to choose one or the other. The whole C++ Builder package was a complete nightmare, but thankfully I'll never have to go anywhere near it ever again.
Standards? Come on, VS may not be that compliant, but then few compilers are. Builder isn't. OTOH the VS IDE completely blows away the Builder hack which mostly reminds me of VB's horrible IDE (6 & earlier - never used 7, never want to see VB ever again).
Rational's latest sexy tools, unfortunately, are win32-based. At an XDE dog and pony show with IBM, the Rational tech at the podium answered my question regarding *nix support with silence...when pressed, he said there were no plans for ports "as far as he was aware".
The older tools are a generation distanced from where the world is headed; XDE has been described to me as part of Rational's "showcase product line".
Redundancy is good; triple redundancy is twice as good! - Me.
I still would use CVS in a heartbeat over ClearCase, if not under a corperate mandate to use ClearCase. It is a lot better than Sourcesafe though, at least from my distamt memories of SourceSafe!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
..Borland buys Microsoft!
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
Although I wish Borland would stay a scrappy independent forever, I always thought that Sun or Oracle would be a good parent for Borland.
Actually, if you could get past the CEO egos, a combined Sun/Oracle/Borland could be an instant IBM and Microsoft "killer". They would have the hardware from desktop on up that could be supplemented with x86 hardware, the enterprise backend software (J2EE, Oracle, etc), some of the best development tools around (Delpi/Kylix for Linux/Solaris, JBuilder, CBuilder, etc), and an Office suite to boot.
Their corporate cultures seem to be compatible, from what I know of them (not much, directly, but based on years of reading). I don't see anything compatible between Microsoft and Borland, however.
He got modded up +4, and now your post is seen as manipulative cleaverness...
Don't underestimate the readers.
You could have justified yourself if you hadn't have written "Mine was better" in an arrogant crass tone.
People don't want to identify with crass arrogance, especailly if the other guy is sincere dork.
Trouncing on a sincere dork only makes you look like a prick and a manipulative tool...
A few years ago Rational purchased a company called ObjecTime because they had a very solid product ironically called ObjecTime. This tool allowed you to model your system, build state machines, build and run test harnesses, build message sequence charts, and run and test on an embedded target system all with relative ease I've never before experienced in a tool (and I've used plenty of them). The modeling methodology behind the tool was called ROOM (forgot what the acronym meant). ROOM became UML+realtime extensions as the industry quickly realized how good of a job Bran Selic had done in coming up with ROOM.
The long and short of it is....MS wants all realtime developers to use WinCE and only WinCE. The rational product targets at least a dozen different RTOSs and runs on both Windows and various Unix platforms. I doubt MS would continue to support all of this if they do in fact buy the company.
What a shame if it happens.....
I'm curious. How does ClearCase stack up against Bitkeeper or Subversion? If anyone can speak on it, I'd like to know. :)
Comparison is not fair indeed. Each has a target audience, IMO.
I used to work at a web-design company as a CCase admin... We used to have VSS, and tried to roll out CCase, but the developers HATED IT so much they used every possible leverage they had to start a new product in VSS.
VSS, I think, is a better choice for a small web design company where you don't have a staff of highly-trained sourcecode control admins to deal with the tools. Anybody can install and start using the tool in minutes... And if you don't need all that branching/merging stuff, VSS is a clear winner here.
Clearcase had its good sides. But as an admin, I found it just overwhelming at times, and at the first sign of network trouble, CCase was the first to go down. For all the features that it had, it was just too much trouble (interop stuff was pretty bad, never mind crossing domains). I would only use CCase when:
1) I had a large number of developers
2) those developers were highly disciplined and smart
3) expected parallel streams of the same product at the same time
4) was working with real programming languages (not CF/PHP/web code), where merging, and things like that would be crucial, where there are compilers involved and daily builds, too.
5) had $$$$$$$$$$$ to spend. Rational stuff is expensive!!!
Any other CCase admins out there?
"If you could only see what I've seen with your eyes..." - Roy Batty
IBM has been raking in cash, while letting Sun get beat to death by Microsoft. IBM has not engaged directly and lives by the motto "We are about choice! We give the customer what they want." ...
.NET and all the palladium goodies onto Linux. It is no secret that Micrsoft's Visual Studio is in decline and companies are moving toward other development tools e.g. (Java, Perl, PHP, Kylix). Microsoft can't proliferate all it's trusting computer services, if it doesn't own the backend. The server side is the only place left for Microsoft to gain market share, unless of course they buy Verizon. However, even if Microsoft does head for the embeded device market, Linux is there too (and royalty free)! I wonder if Ballmer has nightmares about smiling Penguins?
.... This is going to get really wierd. I
So the new Microsoft strategy is going to give people a choice as well. They will become O/S agnostics, just like IBM. This way they can position
Microsoft is not going to do what IBM did and watch as everyone passes them by. They are suiting up to get into the Linux game, which is scary... but as Daffy Duck always says, "If you can't beat'em, join em."
Could someone from Microsoft (you avid Slashdot readers), confirm this, speculate, or leak some more internal memos?
Only to the extent that a bank competes with random strangers as a reasonable place to keep my money. SourceSafe may be viewed by many as a reasonable alternative for Clearcase, but that's a horrible mistake. SourceSafe is deeply flawed and inappropriate for any but the most trivial situations. I've written a paper on Visual SourceSafe's many flaws. Spread the word! Friends don't let friends use SourceSafe!
Search 2010 Gen Con events
I can't understand why MS would want to buy Borland, they've already hired away all their talent.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
In other words, there are simply not many places outside large, stable (???) in-house corporate development environments where it makes any sense.
In virtually all projects I've been in, CVS is a far far better choice than clearcase
I absolutely love Delphi. The OO Pascal language is so elegant and the IDE rocks! I think Kylix will become great too in another version or two. I know the article is just speculation in regards to Borland, but could M$ even legally persue Borland? Wouldn't that acquisition put them in charge of too many competing products, especially JBuilder, which would allow them to negatively influence two of the best development tools for Linux and even the Java environment? Aside from their speculative acquisition of companies to kill software development tools competition, what about their proposal to kill the Linux OS itself by eliminating the open hardware system with Palladium? I think M$ has realized that to protect their OS, they have to move towards proprietary hardware as they've done with the XBox. Because they have so much power over the hardware manufactures, they can force the hardware shift, make Linux chase them and compete on their own terms. All very bad stuff.
Um... CLX is based on QT. Partially at least.
http://www.drbob42.com/kylix/kylix.htm
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;
Java is an area that Borland is strong (JBuilder and app server, recently purchased OptimizeIt), but obviously MS would probably just shut that side down; conversion to C# wouldn't seem to make much sense, as it would then just be a VS.Net competitor. I suppose they could spin it off, but since the Java branch is maybe the most successful, it again begs the question 'why bother with the purchase in the first place?'
Borland does have a couple other fringe products - DB, SCM etc, but they wouldn't appear to have much compelling value by themselves.
In short, the only concievable reason I can see for MS doing this would be to shut them down and absorb the market share, which is neither particularly cost-effective nor likely to be without PR and other repercussions.
In summary - this one seems like complete vapor to me. It's pure reaction to the IBM-Rational agreement, and the assumption that somehow MS will have to respond in kind.
Just imagine being those engineers... no matter what you do you still end up working for Microsoft (assuming the do the deal).
(Washington, DC.) In a move aimed at preventing important documents from being delivered reliably in a timely fashion, the US Postal Service today announced its planned acquisition of FedEx Corp. "We can't have people denying us the opportunity to lose all of their mail," a secret internal memo from the Postmaster General explained.
In a separate statement, the Postal Service continued its campaign to educate the public on the dangers of utilizing open-box pizza delivery services. "Pizza shipped in an unsealed box," so the Postal Service, "is an inherently insecure and potentially dangerous solution."
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
M$ bought Visio a while back, while providing nowhere near the functionality of Rational (for ex. you can reverse engineer Java code with Rational). M$ also bought (I believe) a clearcase competitor called SourceSafe, that is very similar (even Unix based it seems).
I think it is clear here the strategy of both M$ and IBM: if you control the tools developers use to build products, you can channel them to your own platform. This is probably why Sun, even though owning Java, is nowhere compared to IBM as far as web servers. One of the main reasons behind the success of WebSphere, I think, is the power of VAJ (and also why IBM puts so much emphasis on WSAD (Eclipse) and now Rational).
So snapping up Borland, which once competed head to head with M$ (except for the OS!), is probably great for M$ not good for Linux.
Clealy sir is powermad.
Rock that shit, homie
Where have you been?
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
I have to program on Java from time to time as well, but usually I use high-order languages, like Python and Lisp. Well, whole Java annoys me. Swing and EJB are both the best illustration of how to sell bad technologies through non-technical managers.
I think with death of Borland (that's the goal of Microsoft deal, isn't it?) the chances of Java to survive will be less, while chances for better languages of new generation (read: functional and logical programming languages) to come to the market will be bigger. I wonder (but won't be surprised) if Microsoft will start sell some of them.
Less is more !
I would never buy anything Java-related that came from microsoft. Here's why!
All your files belong to us. It's in the EULA.
Anarchy Online uses QT.
<Amanda`> I just went out to the parking lot in my bathrobe to exchange warez CDs.
If this deal goes down then more power to Microsoft. This is only software. Both Rational and Borland are running businesses, with the object of making money.
Rational Software Up 3% On Rumors Of Second Bidder
By DONNA FUSCALDO
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRESNEW YORK -- Shares of Rational Software Corp. (RATL) saw heavy volume Wednesday after rumors spread on the Internet that a second company could make a bid for the software maker.
The stock recently was up 30 cents, or 3%, to $10.59 on volume of 21.5 million shares. Average daily volume is 5.6 million.
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) said Friday it would buy the software tools maker for $2.1 billion, or $10.50 a share.
Following news of the pending acquisition, some Wall Street pundits said IBM was getting Rational on the cheap, which sparked speculation that another bidder would step in. On Wednesday rumors abounded that Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) could be that second bidder.
Officials at Microsoft, Rational Software and IBM declined to comment.
While investors traded up shares of Rational on the rumor, some analysts discounted the veracity of the speculation.
Gary Abott, an analyst at RTX Securities, said the chances of a second bidder emerging are highly unlikely.
There is a constituency out there that believes IBM has stolen this on the cheap, said the analyst. I do not count myself among that group.
According to the analyst, who does not own shares of Rational, Microsoft is an unlikely suitor.
Microsoft is an intelligent and formidable company and paying a premium to this price doesn't appear to a make a lot of sense to me or anybody, he said. RTX Securities does not have an investment banking relationship with Rational.
The rumor was also reported on CNBC.
Kevin Buttigieg, an analyst at Kaufman Brothers, agreed a counter offer from Microsoft is unlikely.
He noted that IBM included a clause in the agreement, which basically said that if a competitor purchases Rational, the software tool maker's source code would still be disclosed to IBM.
Buttigieg does not own shares of Rational and Kaufman Brothers doesn't have any investment-banking ties with Rational.
Still that didn't stop investors from betting that another suitor may step up to the plate.
After reaching a high of $10.72, Rational's shares swapped hands recently at $10.59, up 30 cents. That's a slight premium to IBM's all-cash offer of $10.50 a share, signaling that some investors expect a higher bid.
Rational's trade volume, at nearly 26 million shares, was nearly five times its average daily trade volume of 5.5 million shares.
The stock is certainly acting like people expect a higher offer, said one arbitrage analyst.
The analyst said the acquisition would make sense for both Microsoft and IBM. It's a small deal, he said. IBM can write the check and so could Microsoft.
IBM is hoping to close the deal in the first quarter. If there is a bidding war it will have to happen soon.
-By Donna Fuscaldo, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5253; donna.fuscaldo@dowjones.com
(Janet Whitman in New York contributed to this report.)
Updated December 11, 2002 3:20 p.m. EST
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
They may not be able to buy Forte or Eclipse but they can remove a significant development tool for the linux platform that allows the exact same project to run on solaris, linux, windows and mac os (to a lesser extent). This gives credibliity to the platform as a stable one that is supported by large vendors.
Personally I develop through my company for Windows and Linux the same (JFC) but for OS X I use the development tools (interface builder) from Apple and tie into my same java classes (we recompile a cocoa app). We build an Aqua interface and tie into the same backend. On Linux and Windows all development is in textpad (via wine in linux). Any other apps that are specifically remote in nature are implemented in JSP for web access. So I can sort of agree with you but not entirely. If I didn't use Windows so much I'd be using vim exclusively (but that's another fight altogether!).
That is strange. Not sure how yours was setup, but if you checked files out for developing, it was irrelevant to the ability to backup the VSS database - same with being logged in. We were logged in 24/7 to our VSS DB and the backup of our VSS DB was always successful.
However, if you were backing up source files from a machine while VCC 6 was running, it would keep locks on the VCC generated class browser index file (and one other i thnk) so they could not be touched but which was also not required for backup.
Billy and Steve are way to into controlling the company for that to happen!
I suspect they have a secret underground pool of gold coins just like uncle scrooge. And they know exactly how many coins are in it.
Now were going to be stuck using Microsoft crap compilers and IDE's.
Hmmm... So, perhaps a little more research next time? Props for straightening me out...
</blush>
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Has anyone noticed that Eclipse's home page is no longer what it used to be?
Is IBM droping the project after it buys Rational?
Esta es una firma en Espanol.
...in the market for graphics-suites. Buy JASC, maintain, enhance and market Paint Shop Pro and sell it for discount-prices to get Adobe on their knees to finally buy them or kill them (and buy them anyway afterwards). And, as a nice side-effect, finally have a chance to fully control Apple.
Who will stop them? No authority complains about the billions and billions they invest into the Xbox, just to push Nintendo and Sega out of the console-business. What that lawsuits of the past years good for? While we are complaining about things they did in the past, they take over the whole consumer-software-business and no one complains. Is that what's "good for competition?"
"Borland, like Microsoft, also sells programming tools that allow software developers to build programs for Microsoft's .NET Internet software. But unlike Microsoft, Borland's tools allow developers to run their applications in non-Microsoft environments..."
And this I fear is the motivation. Borland sells an excellent tool called Kylix that runs on Linux. The product has two IDEs. The first is equivalent to Borland's Delphi and the second is the equivalent to Borland's C++Builder.
In fact by using these tools, companies can develop Microsoft products and easily port them to Linux. Microsoft doesn't want that on the desktop.
Remember what happened when Microsoft bought Corel shares? Corel almost immediately announced that there would be no further development on Corel Linux. Of course Corel management said that the decision had nothing to do with Microsoft's purchase. Yeah, right...
So all I've got to say is if you want to use these excellent tools you may want to buy them soon!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Microsoft are attempting to push the price of Rational up to either bust the deal or create fear and confusion in the Java market. The Borland thing is just to add credibility by appearing to have a contingency plan. Basically, they are terrified of an IBM armed with Rational dev tools and Java - a certain .NET killer.
I especially liked this part of the story:
'"We never comment on rumors and speculation," a Microsoft spokeswoman said.'
No, they only start them.
While browsing for info in regards to the legality of a proposed buyout of Borland, I ran across this site from Microsoft Monopoly, at Stanford, Its has a fairly well laid out description of all of Microsoft's past woe's and tangles with the law.
Flagship
DCMonkey
I am a Clearcase admin and have used lots of differnt CM tools, here's my five minute CM tool primer:
Visual Source Safe: This tool regularly corrupts its database, enough said. Also, it only runs on Windows boxes.
CVS: Free (cash/software), useful for projects without alot of code variants, small development teams and simple CM processes. It doesn't scale well when the CM process gets complex or the code base needs to support lots of code variants. Basically CVS is the "creeping featurism" of a bunch of RCS wrapper scripts.
SCCS and RCS: See CVS.
DSEE: Good for at least one "Unknown Error, exitting DSEE" message per week, usually occuring after spending 45 minutes trying to set the model thread. This CM system is good on paper, but badly implemented. However when the UI is not crashing, it's solid.
StarTeam: Some opperations are not possible from the command line, only the GUI, making it useless from an automation point of view. Also, it's slow.
Perforce: Pretty powerful, the client runs everywhere, but it's pendantic about process. It's difficult to adapt to an existing CM process. However, it's a solid tool with lots of cool features.
Continuus: Runs on the Windows/Big Unixes of the world. You can use the predefined CM process, or with effort, adapt Continuus to your current CM process. It gets the job done, but it can be painful to use.
Clearcase: Extremely powerful, but requires administration. Eats lots of HW/network resources. Expensive. Easily adapatable to a user defined CM process or you can use the out of the box Clearcase UCM. This is the Rolls Royce of CM tools. Lots of hackers don't like it, because rolling out Clearcase is usally indicative of ending whatever ad hoc CM process is currently in place and replacing it with a real CM process.
My subjective ranking of CM tools:
1. Clearcase
2. Perforce
3. Continuus
4. CVS
5. DSEE
6. StarTeam
7. RCS
8. SCCS
9. Any homemade CM process and tools
10. No CM process or tools
11. VSS
Argo doesn't do collab/sequence diagrams, nor does the whiteboard ed. of TJ. Boo, hiss. I haven't found *any* free tool that does collab/sequence diagrams (Dia doesn't count, I need this for work, not home.)
0 111-ootools.html.
I'm tired of static class diagrams that don't tell me how the system *works*.
So is Allen Holub. See http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-01-2002/jw-
As a previous Windows Delphi developer who as recently replaced ALL of my company's systems with Linux + Kylix for custom business code, this story has put a major pit in my stomach.
While I realize that a lot of open-source purists don't much care for Kylix, as a pervious professional Windows Delphi developer it has been absolutely awesome to have Kylix to port my code to Linux.
Lazarus is coming along, but it has been doing so very slowly for years now. The first time I looked into their IDE was roughly 3 years ago, well before the first mention of Delphi for Linux.
If you need RAD web app or client/server database development capabilities for Linux, Kylix is really hard to beat (and yes, I have tried). In addition, I would venture to guess that better than 90% of my Windows code didn't even require touching to start working in Linux.
I personally don't mind having shelled out the price of Kylix Professional or the price of the boxed set for Red Hat. To implement the dozen or so servers it has cost me FAR less than the price of a single Windows 2000 Server + SQL... which my business simply can not afford.
The loss of Kylix would make running my business on LAMP infinitely less appealing. In addition, several of the existing products that I am developing for Linux that are some of the primary focus points for my business would take a major hit. I don't have the time or resources to develop tools to do my development or to try to port all of my code to a new language.
Just out of curiosity, who is this J. Hicks?
How about this: Borland converts all of their software to GPL just before signing the deal. Then the cross-platform stuff will not be able to be killed off (and we'll be able to fix those annoying bugs...)
First, consider that Rational's source control products. As bloated as they can be, they run on Win32 and many flavors of *NIX.
Next, Borland does a lot of Java work. Under Microsoft's rule, this would surely slow to a trickle or be converted to the .NET platform.
Obviously, industry support for non-Microsoft platforms would be greatly reduced if these buyouts go through. Not only that, but many of the good people at Rational and Borland would be soon out of work, as Microsoft would suddenly find them irrelevant to their strategy.
Yes, I think this would be very bad for cross platform development, and the software industry in general.
All I can say is that this awful news to anyone who writes small custom software and makes do with the Borland's "free command line tools" c++ compiler. In my opinion, the true beauty of nix systems is their central, readily available (read free), high quality compilers that allow people who can't/won't shell out massive bucks for MS visual c to get started in the programming world. Borland's command line tools is the closest equivalent to this on windows platforms. It is already close to impossible to find Borland versions of libraries for many things. Oh well I guess I'll have to make a move to mingw/cygwin as my development environment.
Sorry to burst the anti-MS bubble, but it's too late for MS to buy Rational.
I work at IBM, and a company-wide memo was circulated last week (Dec 4th or 5th) that indicated that IBM's bid to purchase Rational had gone through.
Tough luck for MS!
United States of Microsoft today acquired Soviet Russia. According to their spokeman says, President Bill was upset about the fact that in Soviet Russia, Government buys corporations.
Microsoft doesn't rewrite apps from scratch when they buy them. They gradually migrate/refactor the code (ala FrontPage and Content Management Server). It's naive to think that Borland's only value is in its Java tools. It's also naive to think that MS would purchase Borland only to get their hands on the TogetherSoft intellectual property. Borland's value is developer mindshare. They have always been the Apple of software development (regardless of what Microsoft thinks of itself), truly catering to what developers need and want. If Microsoft buys Borland, then they will gradually (over 2-3 years) align the existing non-Java Borland tools (and their customers) over to .NET. Also, consider that Borland has recently expressed interest in using Mono and contributing to the Mono project. There's a strong possibility that Microsoft could prevent this by purchasing Borland - hence preventing an alternative CLR from having professional support. As for JBuilder and Kylix, perhaps these tools would get sold off or mothballed? Who knows?
Reading all the fearfilled comments here about what might happen with Borland C, Kylix etc including their communities and all that time and effort people have spent on learning those development environments, just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside that I've settled for free software. :)
:)
Nobody can take over free software like that, at least not with the communitys acceptance, feels great to be immune against threats like that.
Of course, still hopes that things turns out well for Borland, the Kylix community etc...
Actually, Borland have that in beta already. It's called Delphi.net. See the Borland website if you don't believe me.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Kind of...
Anders Hejlsberg (Chief Arhitect on products like of C#, J++ and WFC) left Borland to join M$ in 1996. An other people left for M$ too at the same dark ages.
I wonder what impact that would have on the relation between firebird and interbase. They might become incompatible, cause MS is no fan of open source.
I like the Swing APIs when viewed from the application developer side, but the underlying implementation is hopeless baroquen. Swing was the first GUI API to get my attention since Genera on Symbolics LISPms.
.. I used to get in more fights with SCO than I did my girlfriend, but
now, thanks to Linux, she has more than happily accepted her place back at
number one antagonist in my life..
-- Jason Stiefel, krypto@s30.nmex.com
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