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Today we got to know about that Borland is planning to split out its
IDE/Tools division to a separate company which will be sold off, leaving Borland
with the ALM business only.
This news have spread like a firestorm between concerned Borland
developers.
My personal view on this, based on news postings by David Intersimone, Allan
Bauer and John Kaster is that this most probably is a good thing for at least
the BDS/Delphi developers.
Why? Well it has earlier been publicly mentioned, by Borlands CEO, that the
tools division, and specially Delphi, is giving so good revenues that they are a
substantial part of the funding of their ALM development.
Hence the decision for splitting the IDE/Tools department out, is not because
they want to terminate the products in a clean way due to lack of revenue. And
since they are looking for someone to purchase the new company, we can also
safely assume that Borland believes there is enough value for money in the
package to make an outside company interested in investing in it.
Then why? There have, for quite a while, seemingly been an internal battle
going on, about where resources should be spend, in the ALM division or in the
IDE/Tools division. That means a diversified focus... 2 major divisions each
aiming at different clientele, different type customers, and having different
needs.
If the divisions are split out in sperate companies, that would clear the
air. One company = one primary focus area!
That's also the explanation that has been given by the Dev. Rel. folks, like
David I and John Kaster.
Who would buy? Your guess is as good as mine. But I would at least guess that
it would have to be someone interested to be in that market, someone that have
enough cash to afford such a purchase and that would have the manpower to back
it up, not to loose the investment.
Contenders (the following is pure speculation on my part)?
Google: They are constantly on search on new areas to expand into... and
rumours about their own OS, hiring of certain central IDE/Tools related personal
from Borland earlier on etc do make them a contender.
Apple: They are trying new ways to get a bigger slice of the platform
market. Lately they have changed direction of their hardware platform and are
basing all new computers on Intel CPU's. One thing that Apple all the time have
lacked, is an open platform and lots of applications. MS made .Net available, I
could easily see Apple as wanting a slice of that market by providing a
BDS/Delphi solution. As an extra bonus they also get JBuilder which ensures that
all current major trends are covered. At least one IDE/Tools
related Borland employee went to Apple last year.
A consortium: I could easily see a consortium of shareholders, including
Apple, MS, HP and lots of small private shareholders. MS would be holding a
minority share, big enough to have some influence, but small enough to ensure
that MS wouldn't risk monopoly charges. HP? Well... that's a wild guess... but
HP do seem to have money to invest, and they may be loosing some grip in the
Windows world, why a development tools division for exactly that area could be
of interest. In addition HP push Linux and Unix, which means JBuilder and
possibly the dormant Kylix IDE could be of interest.
?: There are lots of companies which would have an interest in buying a money
making company. Remember.. there is a positive cash flow.
David Intersimone and Allen Bauer have, in several newsgroup postings,
assured the developers that Borland would select the company to buy
the IDE/Tools division, not based on the one time sales revenue, but on what's
best for the employees, the customers and the tools!
And in the case where no one would be interested in buying (I would think
that is unlikely), we are just back in the same old game... Borland continues to
have an IDE/Tools division, which most likely would still be split out, but run
as a daughter company, with shares 100% owned by Borland.
In other words, as a developer or user of Borland IDE/Tools products I
wouldn't worry.
Kim Madsen
CEO Components4Developers
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