1998 Borland Conference Report
Table of Contents
Announcements
Inprise and other parties made several important announcements as usual. Here is a summary of most of them:
- Delphi Byte Code Compiler - Yes it's true, Inprise demonstrated a byte code compiler for Delphi (dcc32j). Hopefully sometime Inprise will include this in Delphi 5 or maybe Delphi Enterprise.Your Delphi applications can now have the potential to run anywhere Java can. However, currently only non visual applications can do this. This has far reaching implications for distributed computing and Midas servers. Inprise has also asked in public surveys about bean support in future versions of Delphi. So maybe some day we will have some ability to do visual applications in Delphi and compile them to Java byte code.
- Visual DBase Future and InterBase GUI Tool - Visual DBase has now been handed over to InterBase Software Corporation. InterBase has committed to one more version of Visual DBase. After that, as far as I can tell they plan to "morph" it into an InterBase GUI tool.
- InterBase 6 - No date announced, but IB6 will have synchronization.
- InterBase 5 for Linux
- Midas licensing - Midas licensing is now cheaper! Midas can now be licensed per seat. It starts at $250 for the first users, and about $135 for each additional. Note: This does not include the Visigenic license as does the normal $5000 per server Midas license, so be careful if you plan to use Corba instead of DCom or Sockets. Please confirm actual figures with Inprise.
- Corba licensing - Many people have been told that the licensing of Visigenic was $995 per server. I have been told this is a miscommunication and that it is actually $1995. Confirm with your sales rep before taking my word on this one, as I did not receive definite confirmation on this.
- JDK for Linux - There will be an official port of the JDK to Linux. Javasoft is working with a Linux developer currently. No dates available.
- Small and Independent Developers - Small and Independent developers are still very important to Inprise and will always be part of their strategy. Just because they are focusing on the enterprise does not mean they will slight the little guy. This was expressed in one of the newsletters, and I also met with Del personally during the Customer Advisory Board meetings and expressed this concern.
- New Strategic Agreement with Sun Microsystems
- Next years ICon - ICon 99 is in Philadelphia on July 17-21, 1999.
- Delphi 4 Patch is now available - You can download it here.
- Delphi32.com - Delphi32.com now has a new webmaster.
General Report
ICon 98 was as fun filled as ever, and there were over 3,000 attendees and more than 200 sessions, and about 8 hours of sleep (Borrowed from Zak). This makes it the largest ICon ever. Their theme this year contained no copyright problems and was based on the "Knights of Inprise". Del and friends donned real armor and became Knights of the Roundtable on the quest for the Orb of Knowledge. The video will be available in AVI format sometime in the future (probably on the post conference CD). Changing their name to Inprise certainly has not dulled their sense on how to throw a conference. The only thing I would like to see next year, are designated mid day sleeping hours. <G>.
There was lot of AS/400 stuff at this show which is a very good thing for Inprise. The Visigenic merger has also brought lots of new faces and customers to Inprise. The acquisition of Visigenic appears to have had very positive effects.
As usual Inprise brought in some interesting Key Note speakers. One of interest to many of us was Dr. Alan Baratz. Dr. Alan Baratz is the president of JavaSoft. I claimed my 5 seconds of fame at the end with the allowed 5 people to ask questions. I asked "When will JavaSoft officially port the JDK to Linux and when will the JDK implementation be tightened so that it really is 'Write once everywhere' and not 'Write once debug every where' (Referring to varying thread implementations and other differences)" He laughed at first, but did answer them. The answer to the former (which brought applause from the crowd) is that they are working with a Linux developer and that one will exist sometime soon. The answer to the latter is that the specification is pretty tight, but has not been enforced well. Javasoft is in a "second stage" of Java development and part of this is better testing of the JDK's implemented by other parties.
I also have a message to convey from Del and Inprise to those of you who could not attend the conference. I had the chance to sit in on the Customer Advisory Board meetings. One of these meetings included Del, other top executives and about half a dozen Customer Advisory Board members. It was at this meeting I had a chance to personally address Del with several issues. Because of an NDA, I cannot tell you the specifics but I believe I am safe in telling you the following. I am basically just rephrasing what has been said by Del and others publcly (But does not seem to be well understood) Del is committed to supporting the small and independent developer. Inprise is focusing on the Enterprise for sales however as they must to survive in the modern developer tool world. But Del understands the importance of the small and independent developer in this world. Even if you are not developing Enterprise applications, you may some day. Inprise wants to make sure your transition is as painless as possible. If you are one of those who never does any enterprise applications, you still support enterprise developers by creating and selling components, and many of you later take jobs in the enterprise. So please take my word for this one, Inprise will continue to support you. Del also expressed this in an article in the Tuesday IChronicle (ICon daily newsletter).
In addition to the "Integrating the Enterprise" theme, there are two other supplementary themes. Inprise wants to make the transition to the enterprise as easy as possible for those of you who do not need enterprise features quite yet, and Inprise does not have a platform agenda. Both of these are very good news for developers.
![[Image]](BenRiga_and_Rune.gif)
A huge group from Inprise was present of course. This is Ben Riga and our own Rune from Norway.
The computer lab was of course busy with legions of attendees checking their EMail and playing with Inprise products and reviewing the latest session materials. The computer lab was furnished with about 50 Pentium 300 MHZ machines hooked to T1 line. Even with the T1 though attendees were using full capacity.
John Kaster was beat up pretty well in "Meet the Delphi Development Team". Some suggested it should have been renamed "Meet the Delphi Team and Beat Up the BDE Manager". Users overwhelmingly asked for improvements to the Paradox table system. Of course my suggestion for InterBase would solve this problem (See InterBase under Vendors for details).
It would not be an ICon without Marco Cantu and his session "The Fun Side of Delphi'. His session was even better than last year.
ICon's are action packed. It's very easy to become overwhelmed and tired. This lounge area has been converted into a sleeping barracks. <G>. There appears to be one person laying in each converted booth.
On a personal note, I had no idea how much traffic Kudzu World has been receiving. I also found out that most people did not connect Kudzu World with me. But later on in the conference people began to tell me "Hey, you're the Kudzu guy! Your page is hilarious!". I am glad it has become so popular and am glad you all enjoy it so much. Stay tuned, as Kudzu grows like crazy, and I have major plans! Check back frequently and be sure to join the Kudzu Vine.
Vendor Report
This is a vendor report from my viewpoint. It is not a complete or comprehensive report of every vendor that attended. If you are a vendor and I did not list you, I'm sorry. Either your photograph did not come out, you did not have good enough candy to attract me, or you are NetMasters. Previous ICons have been ~95% product vendors and ~5% services vendors, this year it was about ~75 services and ~25% products. At least for me, this made the vendor area kind of boring. Many of the booths were very "corporate" and did not contain any info to make me want to inquire more (very uninformative and/or unattractive to an attendee). If you are a vendor, keep this in mind next year. If your not in this list, this may also be a possible reason. The message board was over stuffed with job offers, and I think a lot of the services firms were fishing for employees. This is a good sign for the Delphi community, even if it made the vendor showcase boring. (For me at least). I've listed them in alphabetical order so as not to play favorites. I'm sorry if I haven't gone into great detail on all vendors. Maybe next year.... If this report is useful to me be sure and let me know and I'll concentrate more on one for next year. I kind of did this as a last minute thing.
I have one suggestion for next year. Inprise, please restrain the Booth Nazi.
Apogee
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Apogee won a big award from Inrpise this year for a project they did for ITT Sheraton in Delphi. They also gave away a nice Olympus digital camera this year. |
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BrickHouse has some kind of business object framework similar to BoldSoft's. |
DSW does some kind of Delphi traning and is based in Atlanta, GA. I do not remember much else except they had the best candy. In exchange for my pilfering of StarBurst, Twix and other candy, I let them schpiel for a little while. Check the DSW booth next year for good candy.
Eagle Software
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Eagle Software was present as usual and demonstrating Code Rush. If you have not checked out this product yet, it's a must. Check out their web site for details. They also held a drawing for a cool Eagle Software jacket. As Mark and Cindy are good friends of mine, and the vendor showcase was kind of boring, I was their resident booth bum for much of the show. |
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Hitachi was showing a TP (Transaction Processing) monitor application, and got my attention because they had good cookies and we're quite a cheerful bunch. The booth looked very corporate though and did not convey what they were selling very well. The cookies did me in though..... |
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IBM was here in a pretty big way, and so were tons of AS/400 vendors. A very good sign for Inprise, but I do not work with the AS/400, so I apologize to AS/400 users as I pretty much ignored it and it's vendors. |
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Infocan was present and had a putt putt game for prizes. |
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Delphi Informant was present and offering every issue of Delphi Informant on CD for only $30! It must have been popular as they sold out by the end of the show. |
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Inprise. |
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InterBase made some exciting announcements this year. However they have not made the one I have been asking for for years. They need a InterBase Lite with an unlimited redistributable license. SQL Anywhere has this, and SQLA 6 now has native BDE drivers. Support my cause (And yours too I'm sure) and write Mike Tossy the Director of Marketing. Please be polite. Mike is supportive of our cause actually, we just need to let him know how many of us really want it! After all, I would hate to see SQL Anwyhere eat away at InterBase. But think about it, name one shrink wrap product with InterBase. SQLA has dozens. |
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MKQuery came all the way from france with their absolutely awesome product. Their product replaces the SQL editor with an MS Access like (Much better actually) query builder. You can also bundle it into your software for your users to use. |
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Nevrona announced their ReportPrinter with GUI interface (Finally!). No date given, but they did demo it and it should be out very soon! My only complaint about ReportPrinter Pro was it's lack of a GUI. This addition is bound to make it my new absolute favorite. (Sorry for slighting ACE reporter, your photo did not come out.) |
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Nevrona also offered free caricatures to anyone who wanted one. A very cool attention getter. The caricatures are based on their "Syntax Error" comic strip (programmers humor) which is on their web site as well. It is updated regularly and archives are also available. |
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OK, so I had some AS/400 coverage. But this one was by request. I do not know who she was, but everyone requested I get her picture. So here she is, and I even got Rune a big hug! Way to go Rune! I was not able to get a picture of the infamous camera girl though. And oh yeah, News/400 is some kind of AS/400 publication. |
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Raize was present as usual, but their booth was so busy I could not get in. |
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Starbase was here with their StarTeam product. They were the only version control vendor present. IMHO opinion it is also the best one available and have absolutely incredible tech support, especially when you are in a pinch (like slow server hard drive failures). They also told me (Right Starbase?) there is going to be an awesome new Delphi/C++ Builder integration as the current one, well it sucks. (StarTeam has it's own application, which still makes it very usable with Delphi/C++ Builder). I am also trying to convince them to modify their diff utility to compare DFMs properly. Please write Steve Reynolds (Director of Product Management) and tell him you would like to see the above features implemented. |
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TurboPower was here with all of their great products. They also have plans for a Delphi profiler! Very cool indeed.. |
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XCase is about the coolest case tool I've seen. I was sold on the thing after seeing it last year. |
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ZAC Catalogs was here. I suggest some candy next year. <G> |
Other ICon Sites
- Bob Swart's Live Conference Report
- Wayne's Niddery's Pictures
- Audio's of Keynote's and Product Addresses
Conclusion
ICON 98 was just as good as previous years. They may now be called Inprise, but they didn't lose the 'Borland'. I'm really looking forward to ICON 99 (or PimpCon as I've been calling it) in Philadelphia. Hope to see you next year in the land of Bor! (Bor Land).
If you have any comments, questions, additions, or corrections, I'd love to hear from you. Please tell me if you enjoyed or hated this article.
