Listen to the audio replay, or download the mp3 version.

This is a log of the chat room during the live audio chat with "DevCo" luminaries on March 28, 2006.

Note: This log is only the chat room transcript. There is much additional information covered in the audio replay that is not available in this chat log. For all previous and upcoming live chats, see EventCentral.

VIP Lounge

jkaster: doychin: "Any chance to see some screenshots from Peloton since it was demoed at EclipseCon?" - david: yes, we'll be providing BDNtv recordings of Peloton, and Tod Nielsen's keynote at EclipseCon up as soon as we can

aohlsson:mitov, dtkalcec, et al: You should really read Allen's blogs. There's new info in every post.
jkaster: Emery: "what is the url for Allen's blog?" - Good question: http://blogs.borland.com/abauer
jkaster inserts the following link: http://blogs.borland.com/abauer

davidi: bmcgee: "I'm hoping DevCo kicks off with a substantial developer conference. Can you comment on this?" - We are putting together plans for more developer conferences around the world. A great time for a conference would definitely be after we have our new company. In the meantime we are still traveling, still speaking and exhibiting at conferences, visiting customers, etc. Stay tuned to BDN and Events Central for additional news.

jkaster inserts the following link: http://ec.borland.com
cellis:Watch BDN for a survey that I'll be posting in the next week asking for you to help us build the next Developer Conference.

davidi: mitov: "I would like to hear if this is a spin off or they are still looking for buyer?" - Spin off. Read Allen Bauer's blog for all the steps we are taking.

jkaster: joemele: "I have asked allen a year or so ago to fix his list of past entries to by year then month not month then year. it is annoying? will this ever be fixed?" - that's not something Allen can fix. The blog server needs to be updated. We're working on migrating from .Text (orphaned OS project) to CommunityServer

jkaster:we are creating the InterBase data adapter for CS now

jkaster: aikimark: "don't ignore the East coast and user groups" - noted

davidi: MrPMorris: "Is there a known timeframe that you can share for when some kind of announcement will be made regarding the buyer / company structure etc?" - Allen Bauer recently outlined many of the common steps that need to take place in a spin-off. Take a look at his recent blog with this listing. We have a leadership team for "DevCo", we have an internal Board of Directors, we are operating as a division within Borland moving our products forward. We are putting together the plans and documents that we will deliver to potential investors. We will start presenting to investors next month (April).

davidi: Emery: "What specifics re: DevCo are available today?" - Check out Allen Bauer's blog - he is documenting the whole "journey" in real time.

jkaster: aikimark: "for consultants, what should we tell our potential clients about an investment in solutions built with Delphi vs. Visual Studio?" - panel synopsis: you need to look at the value the tools bring to the table. Productivity is important, and enhancements like ECO on top of .NET. With the technology at hand, DevCo has a toolset that fits the needs of a very large group of developers. It's all about productivity.

jkaster: joemele: "Will bdn be on a comunityserver implementation too?" - no, there will be a new BDN implementation out shortly, and we don't have any plans for using CommuniityServer for anything other than blogs at this point. We have other technology in place we will be leveraging, particularly ECO.

cellis: ronj: "I have always found the power of Delphi to be the strength of its third party tools. Do you see the .NET platform as a marked increase of revenue for third parties that also support Delphi?"- RKonopka: We're still see very strong sales for the products and getting more license, etc. We haven't seen any drop-off in sales. This is a testament to the confidence people have in the technology.

davidi: Emery: "Who specifically is on the leadership team for DevCo?" - Leadership includes Nigel Brown (GM), Michael Swindell (Product Management), Steve Todd (R&D), Allen Bauer (Chief Scientist), Ben Netick (Finance), and David I (Developer Relations). We have openings for HR and Marketing leadership positions.

jkaster: aikimark: "WHY (in what ways) is Delphi2006 better at client/server and Windows development? That was a statement with no details." - jeff: we measure it backwards, based on how much rework they have to do, and how long it took them to get to the end goal. We've done a number of projects with a remarkable increase in productivity. cary: for Win32, the best software is the software that works. When something new comes out, you'll get a bunch of people jumping on it as though it's a fashion statement. .Net, while amazing, is astronomically complex. Win32 is the standard of the art.

davidi: doychin: "Maybe the new DevCo will make more pushesh in Eastern Europe" - Eastern Europe is definitely important to DevCo. I make stops in some countries (Czech, Poland, Russia, Hungary) on my trips to Europe.

pgustav:in our M&S world - .NET isn't sufficient for performance based apps - whereas Win32 is

jkaster: fho: "Ray. can you tell us about your plans and timeline for a .NET version of Raize Components?" - ray: We've been working on new versions of Raize components, and new versions of CodeSite, and a brand new product for Delphi and C++Builder developers for Win32 development. A lot of new work. Contact your vendor of choice for third party products to let them know demand. Right now, our demand is much stronger for Win32 development.

davidi: Peter4: "cheap educational version ?" - students/education are definitely important for DevCo. Borland has a "academic license" and Site license program for schools. I will make sure we have a strong outreach and product pricing program for students and faculty.

davidi: doychin: "You should put Bulgaria in your schedule for the next trip ;-)" - will pass that along to Jason in Europe. I love going to new countries to meet with our customers.

davidi: JoeH: "Why is no one from ECO Team on DevCO leadership list ?" - Michael Swindell (Product Management) is working with Henrik Jondell (Product Manager for ECO) to make sure ECO is well represented in our planning.

cellis: cellis: "Panelists: What is on your wish list for DevCon to do and continue to do?"- BillTodd: Marketing, marketing & more marketing. You need to define the market and what will increase your market share. PaulG: Corporate communications, more marketing, no nonsence licensing, cater to smaller developers & students, gotta have a conference. JeffS: Marketing (#1), establish good market community. CaryJ: Get back to company's roots of culture of excellence, have a vision/focus and share it with devleoper community. RayK: Look at the opportunities and proactively go after them, restore the ability to turn on a dime, bring back some research and show us better ways to do development. Need a proactive approach instead of reactive. Look at new platforms and deliver on the roadmaps adding new opportunities.
jkaster:sorry about the ringing phone, everyone

davidi: JoeH: "Have any DevCo position titles been decided other than Nigel's ?"- the whole team is here in Scotts Valley working on the DevCo planning and go forward. There are employees also around the world who focus on developers and are helping with planning. And we are all here working on our products, supporting our customers, etc.

jkaster: joemele: "Has a buyer been chosen? and just unannounced or will this be a spin-off ?" - david: a buyer has not been chosen. we're doing the due diligence

jkaster: Peter4: "D2006 SP2 ?" - david: the team is working on new capabilities as techology previews before official release, and we're also working on updates. john: allen has also blogged about it a bit.

jkaster: TPersiste: "Will the DevCo continue to use product activation? Will we be activating older versions of Delphi through Borland or through DevCo?" - david: we are continuing to use our existing infrastructure for this. we'll forward Borland activation urls to "DevCo" urls.

jkaster: Peter4: "there is a new compiler engineer. what is he working on?" - david :this new engineer is helping us on the C++ compiler. We have other openings as well.

jkaster: Emery: "David, how will your role change under DevCo?" - david: it will be the same

jkaster: Atle: "Will this new company focus on win32. .NET is to easy to decompile, and has to many issues with GC etc. Even Microsoft is abandoning .NET for their own tools in Vista. So win32/64 is still the best choice for most development." - david: we've published our roadmap and we're still working on it, improving existing Win32 capabilities, and expanding into other platforms.

jkaster: Atle: "Will the new DevCo company have a focus on engaging the opensource community in further developing the VCL. Some sort of version control system where opensource members may contribute with expanding the VCL and fixing bugs." - david: QualityCentral is there, and you can put your source code in there for suggested changes. We're also engaging Open Source communities and products in our products as well.
jkaster inserts the following link: http://qc.borland.com

jkaster:david: we're not planning on open sourcing our products

jkaster: Atle: "Will the whole Delphi team be intact, or will Borland extract some of the best developers?" - david: they're all here

jkaster: JoeH: "How involved have the ECO Team been in DevCo discussions and planning meetings ?" - we're all involved, including the ECO team

cellis: joemele: "What is the time frame for future announce for DevCo? like in 2 months the name of the buyer etc a timeline fo sorts even unofficial would be nice" - This is not information we can discuss.

jkaster: ronj: "Allen: .net 2.0 timeframe support ?" - look at the published roadmaps listed on BDN
jkaster inserts the following link: http://bdn.borland.com/article/0,1410,33383,00.html

jkaster: Frede: "When will we see a tech preview with support for .NET 2 in BDS?" - we don't have a date, but we're planning on doing it

jkaster:ronj: "The followup question for that is the need to stay relatively recenet to releases like .net 2.0. Can you tell us how DevCo can stay more current to MS releases?" - by increasing resources and investment in Borland Developer Studio

jkaster:iman: "Any chance to release materials to help prepare presentations for smaller markets?" - yes, we will definitely enable our developers to be evangelists as well to support the "grass roots" effort

jkaster: Peter4: "Any news on Linux, FreeCLX, etc. ???" - not yet. I hope to provide an update on this soon

jkaster: Peter4: "i need delphi64 native" - it's on the roadmap!

cellis: Thanks everyone!