Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Borland goes Turbo

So Borland have revived their Turbo range of products. The originals came out before I did any real programming (the ZX Spectrum probably doesn't count) so I don't how revolutionary they were at the time. But the question remains whether this will help revive Borland/DevCo's fortunes. Microsoft moved the goalposts when it released its Visual Studio Express range for free, and Borland had no choice but to respond by releasing free versions of its own development tools. But free and academic versions don't bring in a lot of revenue and although they may drag people in Borland's direction who may start to pay for products later, that's likely to be a long term effect. For Microsoft, development tools are a loss leader, they don't care if they make money so long as they keep people using Windows. For Borland/DevCo it's essential these products make money or else they're out of business. On another note, although the Delphi community seem to be very excited about these new developments, will the rest of the world care? The people who Borland seem to be aiming for, i.e. new developers, probably don't have a clue what the Turbo range was and because of that the new website probably doesn't look retro and nostalgic, it just looks naff. Saying all that, I am pleased to see Borland/DevCo making some positive moves to sell their development tools, it certainly makes a change from the last few years.

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