Categorized under "just can’t seem to look away" I note that Borland closed at an historic low today, according to Yahoo historical data (charted below), of $1.96 after falling 24.90%. Here’s a link to the earnings call which stated Borland’s management continues to seek the sale CodeGear. I sure hope for a positive outcome for the Delphi team here in Scotts Valley and I wish them all the best, I endured my share of Borland downturns over 15 years and know how difficult times like this can be.

What about you, do you watch BORL stock?

I just posted this to my linkblog, according to InformationWeek regarding some news about Delphi and CodeGear that just passed through my Google desktop web clips. No revenue numbers quoted so it will be interesting to see whether or not it can reverse the trend. Let’s hope so!

[Update: Feb. 12, 2008] Here is a link to the actual article.

My last day at Borland/CodeGear was June 28th 2007 and the stock closed at $5.96. Today, I was surprised to see it hit $2.95 down 8.67% for the day and 50% over the past five months. Of course, this outcome is unrelated to my departure but I worked at Borland for 15 years so it’s hard not to peek at the stock price once in awhile.

Borland Software Corp.

[UPDATE Dec 4 2007] Experiencing comment posting problems.

[UPDATE #2] I "think" I've gotten the comment problem fixed. Please use the Contact link on the top left corner of the left hand column if you have problems posting. Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience. Ouch, I see BORL is down yet another 6.6% today.

I see Marco is now featured on CodeGear.com along with Mike Pence and Hallvard Vassbotn. I think it a nice gesture for CodeGear to reach out to the blogging community and highlight some great blogs. I was one of the people contacted when they were looking for recommendations so it's good to see this finally happen. My blog used to be listed there along with Joe, Allen and Nick's but that's no longer the case. Ah, the price to be paid for getting my own domain.

That's ok, today marks my highest RSS subscriber count to date (775) so thanks to all of you who have subscribed even though my blog isn't hosted on the CodeGear blog server. Btw, if you haven't subscribed now's your chance.

The JBuilder team is hard at work on building an IDE for Ruby which is now available for beta testing. You'll need to create a CodeGear Developer Network account to join though it's pretty easy as those things go. Joe McGlynn is the Product Manager and he's got a lot of good content on his blog related to Ruby so be sure to check it out. The official press release is available here.

Here is a list of key features:

• A complete IDE with full support for Ruby and Rails, enabling advanced development features such as Code Completion, Refactoring, type browsing and navigation
• Innovative new "Commanders" that uniquely merge the power of the command line with the ease of use and productivity of the IDE, Wizards and Code Insights
• Dependency visualization and navigation to seamlessly work with all resources regardless of their relationship, location or format
• A full set of development and deployment modules including Ruby, Rails, Gems and Database

[Updated: May 23, 2007] Change CodeCentral -> Developer Network. I used the wrong name.

I've noticed what I believe could be a problem with how CodeCentral handles the HTML title tag for entry pages. I've blogged about the importance of the title tag and I'm certainly not alone on the subject. In CodeCentral the title includes the ID for the entry like this:

ID: 24211 Delphi for .NET example using AJAX.NET Pro

I think the colon adversely affects the search results on Google. For example, take the following Google search (click the link to see the results):

Delphi example AJAX.NET Pro

I fully expected to see the CodeCentral entry I mentioned but it's no where to be found. Likewise when searching for:

ID: 21679 Query Microsoft Index Server Using Delphi

I tried the following search terms:

Microsoft Index Server Delphi

Once again, CodeCentral isn't listed leading me to this following conclusions. First, don't use a colon in your title tag. Second, if you're looking for items on CodeCentral you may have much better luck using a Google site search like this:

Delphi example AJAX.NET Pro site:cc.codegear.com

If you're a C++Builder developer or know someone who is and would like to participate in the Field Test for an upcoming release click here to apply. I'm pretty sure an NDA will be necessary though I don't know the specific so I can't answer questions related to that.

 CodeGear has just gotten a new logo and I really like it, check it out:

It's all part of a brand rollout you'll be seeing more of. Internally, we've been provided with new letterhead styles, business cards etc. all very cool.

Ok, seriously, I'm going on vacation this last flurry of posts is what happens when I check my email before turning off the computer.

It's official CodeGear has just released Delphi for PHP which should be available for ESD download around the world starting today.

We've officially signed off Delphi 2007 and it will be available for download shortly (in fact, it's available for download now in Germany). This is a major milestone for CodeGear and as has been mentioned we've put tons of effort into making this a great release. There are lots of features and improvements to blog about so I'll continue posting about cool features. If there is anything inparticular you would like to hear about please leave me a comment and I'll do my best to post some coverage.

A big thanks to our Field Test community and the BetaBloggers for helping us kick off CodeGear's first major Delphi release. Thanks to all of you who answered Nick's call for beta testers.

I got a few comments regarding the Vista Demo application I blogged about so I thought I'd answer those as well as provide the source code.

> stanleyxu: A small question: is it a 100% Vista-like user interface?

The new Vista UI introduces lots of changes not all of which are supported in Delphi 2007. Delphi 2007 is binary compatible with BDS 2006 which means some of the additional support will have to wait for a release where interface compatibility isn't a requirement.

> gabr: could you release a full source for that?

Absolutely, here you go. Here is a screenshot of this exact same executable running on Windows XP:

The project itself has only two lines of code setting DoubleBuffered := True on the two controls located on the Glass area of the form. You can load and recompile this application in BDS 2006 and just click Ignore all to the message regarding unknown form properties (which are new in Delphi 2007). Just be sure to install the demo Shell Control components first.

If you're a Windows developer and your looking to write native Win32 applications that support Microsoft Vista's new Aero UI you're sort of on your own right now. If you're a Visual Basic 6.0 developer you'll need to "roll your own" solution since Microsoft has moved to .NET. If you're an MFC developer, based on a few Microsoft blog posts, it appears you'll have to wait for the Orcas release of Visual Studio which Scott Guthrie has said will be shipping sometime in the second half of 2007 though it's unclear, at least to me, what level of support is actually planned and I've Googled all over looking.

In Delphi 2007, which CodeGear has announced to be available in Q1, you will not only be able to develop new Win32 applications that support Aero but you'll be able to update exising VCL applications as well. There has been a lot of work on the VCL to support Vista including the Aero UI, the common dialogs, the TaskDialog API. Allen has a nice write-up on how we implemented some of these changes without breaking existing unit compatibility with BDS 2006

Here is a screenshot of Delphi 2007 VCL application I threw together illustrating the new Aero support:

Of note in this screenshot is the Glass UI which extends into the client region of the form, the new style listview/treeview controls, the gradient toolbar style and the combobox style.

I've been so focused on finishing up my remaining tasks for Delphi 2007 as we work toget it out I nearly forgot that CodeRage starts on Monday. If you're in the US don't forget Day Light Savings this weekend and tune in Monday for the conference!

I have a Yahoo Pipe I use to dig up pages related to CodeGear and one thing that keeps popping up is new CodeGear job listings, check it out:

• Marketing Programs Manager
• Senior Manager -- IT Ops and Development
• Controller
• Marcom Manager
• Web Marketing Manager
  

I've posted all of these links to my linkblog.

Next month CodeGear is hosting it's first ever virtual online developers conference. Here are the details:

When:	March 12-16, 2007
Where:	Presented online at CodeGear Developer Network
What:	Sessions covering Developer Studio (Delphi, C++Builder and C#Builder), JBuilder 2007, InterBase and new Q1 products. Here is more information on the sessions to be presented and you can find the agenda here.

If I had any artistic talent I'd have made my own banner where the "Gear" in CodeGear would shuffle around and end up reading CodeRage but this stock image will have to do.

UPDATE: Fix the spelling of "virutal" (thanks Tiberius).

In case you haven't seen Ben Smith, CodeGear's CEO just joined the CodeGear blogosphere. I've been waiting for the shoe to drop on this one and I'm glad to see Ben join the conversation.

Lot's of new links added to my link blog related to today's announcements. I'm a bit late in getting to the news as I've been burning the midnight oil working to improve the performance of desktop switching in the IDE.

I want to know what do you think of today's news? Leave me a comment...

Marco Cantu and Bob Swart both have posted screenshots of the next release of Delphi to their blogs. Marco mentions that he got an email from CodeGear with the bitmap and related information.

I really like this idea of recognizing these indviduals as significant contributors to the Delphi community and sharing some of the attention related to this upcoming release.

Go CodeGear!

Using Yahoo Pipes I've created a news feed for CodeGear drawing items from Google, Technorati and Bloglines. Here is the feed URL which if you click will take you to a Yahoo page that will provide you more options to subscribe and/or edit this feed for your own use using Pipes. If you're into RSS/Atom I'd highly recommend checking out Pipes as it's a major milestone in aggregation. Btw, you might be interested in to my link blog where I'd linked to Yahoo Pipes the other day.

For the first time in years, I'm seeing the kind of communication I believe any healthy organization requires. Ben Smith, CodeGear's CEO mentioned back in our first meeting that he was committed to open communication and I'm seeing follow through on that statement.

One example was the marketing meeting I blogged about a few days ago. Another is when I see Ben walk by my window in one-on-one's with employees, yes, I've had my one-on-one. Yet another example is the weekly all hands meeting where we're kept informed of the latest business related news/events/hires etc. which I greatly prefer over the impersonal email bullet list we'd received in years past. Of course, there is always a Q&A session at the end of the all hands which typically yields a good question and answer or two.

All this formal stuff is great and necessary in light of conducting business although at Monday's JBuilder ship party we got a good dose of our Exec staff's sense of humor which I think is probably just as important, if not more so, than all this formal stuff. I'm not going to dive into the details but they were to focus of a lot of laughter.

Lastly, it can't hurt that I now sit next door to our new VP of Sales, three office's away from our CEO and just upstairs from our VP of Marketing. That's in stark contrast to when Borland's Exec staff relocated to Cupertino a few years ago. Now, the Exec staff sits next door, literally.

No, you didn't read that wrong. CodeGear has a new VP of Marketing, Lisa Romano, in fact she's been here a little over a month and last Thursday she held a brown bag lunch to talk to anyone interested in marketing and brand. The meeting wasn't for her to talk but rather listen. There were about 15 engineers at the table representing QA and R&D from the Delphi/C++ and JBuilder teams.

There was some great discussion and I heard a number of good ideas not to mention I enjoyed hearing from the JBuilder guys their markent and customers. By the end, Lisa had taken several pages of notes and I think everyone walked away feeling like it was a very worthwhile meeting if not a bit shocked by the fact that we actually got to sit across the table from someone in marketing let alone a VP. There is no doubt in my mind, this was a good thing.

UPDATE: I got Lisa's title wrong, it's Chief Marketing Officer for CodeGear. My bad.

I'm glad to see the new CodeGear web site is up and running. Additionally, be sure to read this message from our CEO Ben Smith. It's an exciting and challenging time and I'm really glad to see Ben mention Ruby, Python and Ajax as a few of the emerging technologies we can explore.

So, be sure to head over and check out the new site. I think it's a good start and I'm glad we now officially have an online presence.

Be sure to listen (WMA/MP3)or read the transcript of a conversation with our new CEO Ben Smith.

If you haven't yet heard Borland's IDE business is for sale. There will be lots more information coming out about this throughout the day so stay tuned. DavidI had more information here.

• Announcement FAQ
• Borland to exit IDE business
• Borland Software acquires Segue Software
• Borland to exit IDE market, focus on ALM
• Borland to Divest Dev Tools with Segue Buyout