Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 12:56:14 -0600 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Nathan Williams <nathanw@nils.lib.il.us>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Pulse poll at Borland Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20000926124623.04cf18b0@localhost> In-Reply-To: <3073B3378589D411B21600508BAF32AA012345@EXCHANGE>
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Borland has a long history of ignoring all but the #1 platform in any niche -- a strategy which has caused them serious problems more than once. Their support of Windows to the exclusion of all other OSes in the 90's made them dependent on Microsoft and practically destroyed the company. When I asked them, at the February LinuxWorld, if they'd be supporting FreeBSD, the marketing droid at the booth asked me (I kid you not) "Which distribution of Linux is that? I've never heard of it." The sad part is that their booth was about two aisles away from the Walnut Creek/BSDi booth. I don't even think they "got it" when the 10-foot-high daemon walked by. When I posted messages on their site's message boards asking politely about support for the BSDs, they simply did not respond. This despite the fact that Borland language manager Simon Thornhill claims that "Borland does not have a platform agenda." (Odd, then, that they support so few platforms!) In short, Borland needs a serious wake-up call. A *lot* of people will have to respond to that poll before they even consider any of the BSDs, and if we're not #1 (or, at best, #2) they simply won't do it. So folks had better vote early and often. This is a company that up to this point has had little foresight and does not have any sense of the value of diversification. I hope they will change. I'm not holding my breath, though, as they have been so dense for all of these years. --Brett Glass At 11:05 AM 9/26/2000, Nathan Williams wrote: >I'm not sure if anyone has alerted this group yet, so I'm sorry if this is a >repeat. Borland is conducting a developer's poll at >http://community.borland.com addressing which OS to add support to for C++ >Builder and Delphi. Currently FreeBSD is 4th, but could easily pull of >second place if we could get a few more votes in. Nobody knows how much >cred Borland puts into these surveys, but this is a great and essential >opportunity for the FreeBSD community to express their interest in corporate >support for FreeBSD applications. So, VOTE goddamnit. >Nathan Williams >nathanw@nils.lib.il.us >P.S. Before voting you will need to fill out a very short registration >form, no biggy so don't let it discourage you from making your voice heard. > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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