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Microsoft Invests in Inprise (aka Borland)
Stephen Legge writes "
Inprise (formerly Borland, makers of Delphi, JBuilder, among other things) has established a strategic agreement with Microsoft.
Microsoft has bought $25 million (10%) worth of Inprise preferred stock.
Read the the press release here. " Only eight years ago, this would have been unthinkable-odd how much the world shifts. Of course, then again, WP5.1 was the de facto standard.
Windows 2000 itself isn't 64 bit. Never was supposed to be right off the bat.
I don't think you have a clue what you're talking about.
My dear AC, I believe you've answered your own question. No, it isn't supposed to be "right off the bat". They were pushing for 64 bit in W2K, which is why none of the windows 95/98/NT applications would be compatible with it, as I recall. That changed when they switched codebases.
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Sell. Soon.
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Open mind, insert foot.
Try running on NT with 128M or more of memory. I've never found any development environment stable on Win95/98 -- it's a deployment platform, not a development platform. (Personally I just use it for videogames and refer to it as my Wintendo box.)
I've found JBuilder, VAJava, and the Symantec products to be equally stable under NT. The issues for choosing between them have more to do with your work style:
1. I'm not a Mac user, and don't care for the Symantec interface. Maybe there's no correlation between their Mac work and their interface, but I found their interface inconvenient. Other users with different habits will have the opposite opinion.
2. VAJava has it's good points, but when you're trying to modify a base class it's really irritating and time consuming to have it flag errors all over your class hierarchy when you modify a method or member, knowing ahead of time that those issues will crop up. It's nice to have them tracked, but it would be far more efficient if you could control when those evaluations are done. Once you've got a few hundred derived classes, you can end up waiting several minutes for VAJava to "save" changes to a method while it updates it's dependancy/error trees. If you're working with stable base classes (purchased?), this same "problem" becomes the biggest benefit of VAJava.
3. JBuilder walks a nice line between the information analysis of VAJava and traditional IDEs that just integrate "make" style tools with an editor, error highlighter, and source debugger.
Personally I prefer JBuilder, but that's not to say the other environments are "bad". They've all worked comfortably with project in the 80-100K line range, provided that they have enough memory.
I'm just hoping M$ doesn't leverage their investment to cancel the Linux port of JBuilder -- it's one of the few key products that force me to keep a WinNT box around (other than customer demands for WinXX development.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This is the next logical step for M$. Regardless of how we all feel about them, this is good strategy on their part. If they can't infiltrate the technology, they'll buy a significant/controlling stake in the other players.
This way, if the industry doesn't buy into the Microsoft method, Microsoft buys into the industry method.
I'm sure there are more 'strategic partnerships' like this on the horizon. Look for M$ to enter into such a partnership with a major PC vendor in the near future.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I wrote Borland off the day they changed their name, anyway, for pretty much the same reasons I don't expect to hear anything more about "Tru64 Unix"...
Since a few people out there think that Windows 2000 will be 64 bit, I've searched, and found these links. NT4 is 64-bit.. mostly. win98 is not. Hopefully this will clear up the confusion....
Next Consumer Windows to be 98 Derivative Feb, 1999
NT5 officially 'Windows 2000' Oct, 1998
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Yes, I read the release differently.
What the release doesn't say is more important than what it does say.
Inprise has just gotten a HUGE cash infustion from M$. It would be very foolish of Inprise to do something against the best interests of a 10% stakeholder who has also just paid 100mil to settle patent and legal issues.
Inprise will shift focus to pursuits that more immediately benefit it's benefactor.
Even though this was not STATED in the press release, it's implicit in the nature of the arrangement. I give you money therefore you have to be nice to me - it's as old as time.
What the press release DID say what that any speculation about Inprise performing well in the future were just that - speculatory. This might mean that M$ just might hamstring Inprise to make it less of a competitor.
The deal is a payoff. "Here's 5 bucks kid, don't bother me."
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
JBuilder2, and it's new 3.0 version, are the slickest Java development environments I've seen for the PC.
The Solaris JBuilder is supposed to be pure Java itself, and therefore easily portable to other machines and OSes (read Linux)..
Well, it was a nice idea. I guess so thought Microsoft. So long Borland - it's been a pleasure.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Don't worry, that's just the sound of my jaw bouncing off the floor... I would have bet and lost good money that this kind of a thing would NEVER happen.
I used Borland tools for years, and always found them superior to the M$ tools (with the possible exception of Dbase V versus Access 97). I was lucky enough to NOT be stuck in MFC land, although OWL (the Borland C++ Object Window's Library) wasn't much more readable. Apparently (with the demise of Rogue Wave's zApp library, Symantec, and even Sybase Power++ defaulting to the MFC, and now Borland) Microsoft has really gained a near monopoly for Windows- oriented, commercially available C++ development platforms. Not good news, in my book.
Glad to see that M$ is also having to ante up for all of their patent infringements to Borland over the years -- $100 million more than the $25 million stock price.
But I do hate to see M$ win. Makes you kinda glad that MetroWerks is porting to Linux, and that Cygnus is gaining a foothold in WinXX land, doesn't it?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Here's my read on it. Only a feeling, zero fact here, folks.
Microsoft is having a hell of a time getting their 64-bit version of Windows to work. Originally, this was called W2K, and would be based on the NT codebase. That didn't work, but I still think they're trying. Simply put, their current offerings suck, and they know it. W2K was supposed to address "system instability" problems. I think they've arrived at the conclusion that their code/compilers can't cut it, and now they're going for outside help. It's a huge undertaking. I don't think Microsoft, even being the world's biggest software outfit, can handle it.
They need Borland's expertise to get 64-bit Windows off the ground.
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Translation: Microsoft just bought control over Inprise without actually owning it.
Key components of the arrangement include Inprise's commitment to do the following:
Translation: This how Microsoft plans to remove the competitive edge from Borland C++:
Microsoft also paid Inprise $100 million for the rights to use Inprise-patented technology in Microsoft products and to settle a number of long-standing patent and technology licensing issues.
Translation: Yeah so we ripped you off and stole your top employees. Water under the bridge. Here's some money. Now tell your lawyers to take a hike.
"Microsoft is pleased to enter into this alliance with Inprise", said Paul Maritz,
Kind of creepy how a huge corporation is described as feeling "pleased" by this arrangement. "Microsoft is pleased by your obedience. There will no swarms of locusts devouring your crops this year. All hail Mircosoft!"
About Microsoft Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software...
You might take what I say with a grain of salt--I work for a different division of the company, and I don't see very much of what's happening over in the Borland.com division (which appears to be the part of the company most affected by this deal). I guess we'll all have to stay tuned.
In the case of Borland, they probably want support for their Java "extensions" in JBuilder, plus more commitment by Borland to COM and MFC.
But despite some forays onto other platforms, Borland seemed largely a Windows company anyway. It's a shame because some of their products would have been ideal for a cross-platform strategy.
I wonder whether these "strategic investments" shouldn't be curtailed. While an investment does not mean the same thing as full ownership, it does guarantee a "seat at the table" and significant influence. It may also be easier to get past antitrust regulators for now.
Microsoft has sufficiently deep pockets to make those kinds of investments in just about any company that matters, and that bodes ill for any kind of real competition.
Don't forget the UltraSparc, that's a good solid 64 bit chip. Also, if I'm not mistaken, most of the MIPS chips, including the R4400 and R8000 are 64 bit. There's lots of good quality, high performance 64 bit architectures out there that aren't vapour like Merced.
As for the original poster, I can think of a lot of better places for Microsoft to get people with experience on 64 bit architectures. They're nibbling at Inprise because they want to level the alternative compilers market for Windows. It's an attempt to destroy competition even further, plain and simple.
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Open mind, insert foot.