Road to Somewhere
This week’s topic for discussion around Delphi-related blogs will undoubtedly be the newly released roadmap. Most of this will doubtless center around technical features and will be of the “I want my new toys now (and other people can wait for theirs)” type, which is entirely understandable because everyone out there trying to make money out of software wants the best tools for their projects now. For me, the bleeding edge is not a great issue. The only development I’m really interested in is 64-bit, and I’m happy to wait on that while the hardware and O/S implementations sort themselves out.
What I am happy about, however, is the existence of a roadmap. A lot of people have tended to scoff and CodeGear’s worries about Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and have even suggested that this is a smokescreen for not wanting to say anything. Those of us who have worked in regulatory economics know better. These days it is a really bad idea for a software company to go around making airy promises about new versions of their products unless they are pretty sure that they can deliver. So the fact that CodeGear has issued a roadmap suggests that they, their auditors, their lawyers and whatever consultants they might be using are all happy that it is safe to say the things they said. And that, in turn, makes Delphi’s future look a whole lot more safe and secure. (And if you have clients who are convinced that CodeGear will be out of business soon that’s a very good thing.)
One other thing worth noting is that is appears from what the roadmap says that Studio 2007 will have an upgrade path from Delphi 2007, and not be a separate product. It doesn’t exactly say that, and the small print warns about not using the roadmap as a basis for licensing decisions, but it does seem to imply it, which is encouraging.
>These days it is a really bad idea for a software company to
>go around making airy promises about new versions of their
>products unless they are pretty sure that they can deliver.
>So the fact that CodeGear has issued a roadmap suggests that
>they, their auditors, their lawyers and whatever consultants
>they might be using are all
Hmm, so I guess this wasn’t in effect for the past couple of years right? So the we’ll have Highlander in 2006 didn’t count? So the We’ll have CF in 2005 didn’t count….I guess restrictions come into effect when convenient.
BORLANDS’s (CG = BORLAND) roadmap are like the boy that cried wolf. People just don’t buy it anymore.
June 11th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
The lack of published roadmap was never about being able to deliver on the things “promised” in the roadmap, but about the ability to put revenue on the books because of expectations set in any published roadmap.
Asserting that the roadmap makes delivery more certain simply creates the revenue recognition problem that CG claimed they were trying to avoid.
Unless of course that whole SOX/Revenue Recognition nonesense was in fact just that. Nonesense. And anyone with even 1/2 a brain and the ability to read could see that it was.
Which leaves two questions:
1) Why did it take so long to publish something that by CG own accounts was ready months ago? Because of the polishing? The finishing touches? Ok, which brings us to….
2) If it’s so well honed, refined and polished, why doesn’t it say what they (CG) think it says?
i.e. the roadmap says “64-bit eventually, but no earlier than ’sometime’ in 2009″, yet CG seem to think it says we’ll get 64-bit earlier than that.
Sadly, the roadmap has not – among anyone that I know who has seen it – allayed any concerns about CG’s future (and inextricably therefore, Delphi’s) in fact, quite the reverse.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
I too am glad that CG finally managed to have the guts to deal with revenue recognition and publish a roadmap: for me, I’m pretty happy with all that is already in Delphi 2007, give or take a couple nuisances like a (still) faulty Help and a bloated, crappy installer. For all the rest, I can wait. Their primary focus should however be on making their existing products more stable and functional by simply going through those thousands of yet-to-be-processed QC reports and fixing things. THAT would be a major step.
But in the end, I’m pretty confident they’ll get there! Jim Douglas has done a wonderful job so far and he’s only been there for a few months… All in all, I think CodeGear’s future is brighter now: it’s simply impossible to please everyone with a roadmap, but having one IS a major improvement and a statement about them being in at least decent financial shape to handle revenue recognition problems, meaning one can trust their tools for at least a few more years…
June 12th, 2007 at 3:53 am