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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.
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
Excellent! Where can I pre order Visual Pascal?
successful? How? Borland C++ Builder, Delphi, and Kylix GONE. I don't call that successful. I call that anti-competitive.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
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 -
Maybe MS wants to replace VB with something less shitty.
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.
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
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
J#Builder
Turbo Pascal.NET
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.
Well Borland is profitable:
roughly 5m/quarter for the past 4...
That's 8% net profit margin - now this isn't
Microsoft level profits but it's probably
ethically obtained!
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras
I am a Java programmer myself (laugh it up), but Swing just plain annoys me.
Are you on drug(s)?!! Why not?
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.
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#?
successful? How?
Um, because they'll get shares of MSFT which are backed by $40 billion in cash reserves?
But you're right, that's the end.
Borland's products will be examined for what they can contribute to MS Visual Whatever and then be slowly phased out after they've been assimilated.
Taking the argument further, and in reverse, I think it's been a damn shame that good compiler technology has been kept on a leash in Redmond to further awkward corporate interests rather than simply providing quality, standards-based development tools. Yes, MS does provide development tools that are good to some extent already, but they could be so even more if they were untied from the corporation.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Microsoft in buying Borland aquires not only a UML modelling tool (Borland recently aquired TogetherSoft). But, they also purchase one of the better Java vendors out there. This move is both offensive and defensive. M$ 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
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.
Slashdot is not monolithic!
Sigh.
Retarded, irritating and whiney -- sure. You've proved that by combining a false dichotomy with a big flaming strawman. Cheers.
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...
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'
Compare lazarus to delphi or kylix.
bad: Some points are still missing.
good: They are evolving fast enough
bad: not fast enough, at least if you wanna move now
good: It's native in all OS
good: It works much better than wined-kylix (debuging in kylix is a real pain in the ass, it remembers me on windows days, crash, (optional restart), crash, must restart or logoff (or kill all processes in top - delphi and windows are not included, restart is a must there))
bad: less features than kylix
good: lighter, faster
all in all together. I have licensed delphi 7 and kylix 3, but I don't use them, only for some small db projects. All my other work is more console than gui, so lazarus ROCKS, at least for me.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
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.
Microsoft's old strategy of killing competitors by buying them doesn't work with open source. Sorry, Bill.
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.
What is left after that??!! True, Delphi kicks VB's ass in every possible catigory...but after you take out C++Builder and Kylix you are left with
1. Delphi -- Competes with VB
2. JBuilder -- ya, MS just loves Java!
3. Interbase -- already got SQL Server, Access and Fox Pro
4. People -- oh wait, they already hired all of them away.
Consider this, Borland is MS biggest competitor in the compiler market. MS would buy Borland and gut it. Once again, the superior technology (Borland) looses.
Bad User. No biscuit!
If only I had moderation points today... this WAS truly funny if you are a Quake player. Someone please mod this up as funny.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Microsoft today acquired the Free Software Foundation, acquiring the GPL and the last vestiges of competition.
I was about to say that it wouldn't do Microsoft any good because they still wouldn't really be able to use any GPL code, then I realized something...
quite a bit of GPL code has an "or any future version of the GPL" clause. If Microsoft DID aquire FSF it could simply release a new version of the GPL and effectively remove all protection on all of that software.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The real loss will not be C++Builder. The true loss will be Kylix.
While C++Builder is a reasonable approach to C++ development, you need to consider the quality of what it generates. In my experience, the executables that C++Builder generates are very large and very slow to execute. Being a fan of Delphi, I expected fairly small and fast executables when I purchased C++Builder, but there is a definite difference between the runtimes and the resulting executable code.
If you compare the floating point code generated between Delphi and C++Builder, there is an immense difference. The Pascal code generates much faster executables -- and that ought not to be! However, this is the case for Borland's C++ product line and it has been this way for over 10 years.
Practically every other C++ compiler out there generates tighter code than Borland's, especially in the area of floating point math. I am no fan of M$, and never have been, but I must say that their binary code is tighter, by quite a margin, than Borland's. If they acquire Borland and kill off C++Builder, they will be killing off a great GUI front end with a miserable code generator. Yes, I know Borland's is more ANSI compliant...so what? If the binary is slow, and you care about run times, ANSI compatibility is not your primary concern.
Where we will lose as developers will be in the loss of Kylix. It might not be perfect, and it might not be the most efficient code creation engine, but if it creates projects that can be ported to Linux, M$ will want to kill that off quick! And I can't say that I blame them (even if I disagree with the idea).
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
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.
"your mother wears army boots!"
On that note, can anybody explain why this is actually an insult? I never understood. Surely there are many mothers in the military. And army boots are rather sturdy. If my mother wore army boots I think that would imply she could kick your mother's ass. Actually, I think arming more mothers would be a good idea all-around.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
A) Different people can have different oppinions.
B) Either one could be wrong. How the hell does that mean people can't still assert the other one?
C) They could BOTH be right. It's completely possible for Microsoft to be an EvilMonopoly and on the verge of collapse in one or more markets. Assuming they ARE and EvilMonopoly, anything short of total bankruptcy could still require government intervention to set things right.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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
Soldiers fighting overseas would pay local prostitutes by giving them their boots.
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.
Correct, but I forgot that we always ran ANALYZE.EXE before backups, causing the backups to "fail", which is what I should have said...
www.christopherlewis.com