Bits.Bytes.

Well, it’s old news by now that CodeGear has been brought by Embarcadero technologies.
Now, while established CodeGear staff  sound very chipper about it, to me it is just the death knell sound of the kicks of a dying horse. CodeGear is the the quintessential example of a company that never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. (BTW I’ve been a Delphi fan for years, and still have my trusty Delphi 7)
For a while there after it was spun off by Borland I thought that it might just turn the corner but alas! Some of the things that make me wonder are

The Delphi Brand Confusion

Previously Delphi was pretty much the equivalent of VB brand-wise. It was the IDE and the language (although Object Pascal is strictly speaking the actual language, but decades of referring to it as Delphi has cast it in stone). But now confusion abounds in the CodeGear camp. Delphi is the language and the IDE. And there is Delphi for AS400. So far so good. But now there is Delphi for PHP. So Delphi is perhaps the IDE only. But to add even more confusion there is no Delphi for Ruby. It is called 3rdRail.

Blackfish

CodeGear have produced what seems like a pretty solid embeddable database engine, Blackfish. Besides being SQL standards compliant it allows you to write procedures and triggers in Java and .NET, a far cry from SQL Compact Edition. Now, perhaps its just me but I can’t seem to find out if you can get it without having to buy Delphi or any other CodeGear product. Say it ain’t so!

Musical Chairs

The uncertainty about the company never seems to go away. After the name changes Borland-Inprise-Borland-CodeGear, the almost sale, then the spin off and now the acquisition, one wonders what lies next. This uncertainty is not doing anything for a dwindling market share and brand value