Frank Borland is back, but what does that mean?
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/09/23
Frank Borland is back. You can meet him at Micro Focus now – they acquired Borland a while ago – where he relates to things from the past:
Frank Borland first appeared in advertisements and on the cover of the SideKick manual in 1984. Later on, Frank appeared in the first version of the Turbo Tutor manual.
He is talking about powerful and affordable, has Facebook as well as presence on LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+.
But I when I look at the MicroFocus product portfolio, I don’t see any that are both affordable and powerful.
Todays software days are different than 30 years ago, but I do agree with a couple of the points he made:
- Keep it open
- Don’t make it big, make it better
- Focus on the user experience
- Listen to the community
I don’t think you necessarily need to meet these two though:
- Meet every platform need
- Make it affordable
As those two tend to contradict each other.
What do you think?
–jeroen
via: » Frank’s Story Meet Frank Borland.
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
Sam Best said
link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PHBOngJen40
Sam best said
I work for Borland (A Micro Focus Company).
Hopefully I can make things a bit clearer.
“who has any IDEA what Borland is really selling?”
“I can imagine it’s an image campaign in order to attract ‘younger’ developers to ‘COBOL’ – the ‘old’ simply retire”
Borland only makes ASQ and ALM tools,
Borland is separate from Micro Focus’ legacy application modernization offerings and COBOL business.
ASQ
SilkTest: Fuctional & regression Testing
SilkCentral test manager: Automated Test Management and Reporting
SilkPerformer: Load, Stress & Performance Testing
Silk Mobile (Mobile device functional testing)
Silk for SAP: Deeply integrated into SAP Solution manager for end to end requirements driven testing
ALM
StarTeam: SCCM
StarTeam Agile: Agile release tracking & planning tool
Caliber: Requirements definition & management, mature solution
The only Developer tool offered by Borland now is DevPartner, code quality and debugging for C#, C++, Java, .NET
Oh and VisiBroker, the CORBA developer tool.
“The return of Frank-Borland in their advertising is a meaningless”
Well it got us speaking… that’s good isn’t it Warren?
“There must be at least one company still using their miserable excuse for a version control system (StarTeam)”
Yes, HP are our biggest StarTeam customer… thousands of licences, followed by a small soft drinks company called Pepsi or something like that… MetLife, Bank of America, Sony Pictures… they enjoy more than version control too, custom work flow, bug tracking, requirements management, reduced server requirements and harware overhead, almost real time synchronization of assets with MPX advanced caching for globally distributed development teams etc…
Does ANYONE use their products? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
AVG were happy to buy a lot from me… if you use AVG Anti Virus it was tested by Silktest…
Lufthansa Systems bought a bunch of SilkCentral test Manager… they like it a lot
Telefonica O2 Business Solutions use SilkPerformer very successfully… as do Raiffeisen Bank… in huge quantites.
In fact SilkPerformer is arguably better than Loadrunner, and cheaper and with more flexible licencing.
I’d love to answer more questions or help anyone else out :)
Sam
jpluimers said
So where is your @borland.com e-mail address? (;
But thanks for the clarification.
Sam best said
sam.best@microfocus.com
+44 (0)2890260013 Direct
+44 (0)7535818444 Mobile
jpluimers said
UK. Closer than I guessed. Thanks for the contact info.
WarrenP said
Nice to hear from you Sam, and thank you for correcting me. :-)
Warren
Sam Best said
Hey WarrenP!
Check out Frank Borland interviewing Borland’s GM Stuart McGill.
the SilkMobile part is particularly interesting, native functional and regression testing on actual devices (also with emulator support) for all mobile device platforms… sweet solution :)
Sam Best
jpluimers said
Thanks for the follow-up, and the YouTube video link.
jpluimers said
Great comments, please keep them comming.
antonio said
Borland as a brand name stood for affordable programming tools that kick the ass of the big guys.
That was a long time ago.
WarrenP said
Well, I still can’t get over the irony that the Borland management-that-was sold CodeGear off, because programming languages and compilers were SO not what they’re INTO.
Then they ran their ALM-business for a while and realized there wasn’t enough money in it. And got acquired by a COBOL compiler vendor. And that, my friends, is RICH.
The return of Frank-Borland in their advertising is a meaningless, silly stunt that shows that Micro-focus hopes that a few dollars spent in advertising can bring in some ALM sales. But who has any IDEA what Borland is really selling? Does ANYONE use their products? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
There must be at least one company still using their miserable excuse for a version control system (StarTeam), at least…. But really? Is an Borland product really relevant to anyone anymore?
Warren
JOhn J said
So? What does this mean for Delphi? A new affordable anti-Delphi? Maybe real Delphi for Android, (which has been vaporware for more than a year)?
jpluimers said
I think the points that Frank raises hold for Delphi too.
ObjectMethodology.com said
Frank Borland, lol.
William Meyer said
I think that a great company needs a great leader. Apple had Jobs, MS had Gates, and Borland had Kahn. During the glory years, Kahn built Borland from nothing into a very profitable company with excellent products. Yes, the purchase of Ashton-Tate was a disaster, and someone (or several) failed utterly in their responsibility for due diligence. After Kahn was shown the door, Borland was adrift. And still is. Likewise Borland’s successors as owners of the language products. Vision is lacking.
LDS said
Maybe they understood just targeting the Big Ones with highly expensive tools didn’t pay off really – especially in times of recession. And now they are working on less expensive tools aimed at smaller companies too, maybe something alike SmartBear’s product line. That’s why they got Frank Borland back, although a little forgotten and with almost no appeal to youong developers, it could be a good testimonial for a new line of products aimed at small-medium sized companies, using the Borland brand.
“Affordable” is a relative term – for someone a $999 tool can be affordable, for someone else a $199 one may be not. Platform multiplied since the old Frank Borland times, and maybe they need to deliver testing tools beyond WIndows only. Let’s see.
Issam Ali said
welcome back sheriff :)
Michael Thuma said
Meet every platform need
Make it affordable
Meet Platform Needs – Dependent on who you are – the vendor tool faces more requirements than the individual developer.
A business that lives from transactions and mobile will have to put the software to many more devices independent from sole developer or different individuals provide …
Or think – you organize an event … don’t exclude anyone – the minority will not be happy. Democracy is about considering minorities too.
Think of an Enterprise … keeping alive different ways and special handling required in a business process – ‘manual workflow’ in order to address a minorities needs. Such a ‘workflow’ could be seen as backup process, but in reality they are kept ‘alive’ but not really considered in practice – those run at risk to become outdated within one or two years anyway, because of organic changes ….
Make it affordable is required, better said, not too expensive.
Michael Thuma said
I can imagine it’s an image campaign in order to attract ‘younger’ developers to ‘COBOL’ – the ‘old’ simply retire. Would be my guess in a first place, but not the only reason very likely. Same with inhouse SAP people here, when you look behind the scenes. Guess one of the reasons I think why SAP tried to move to Java too … But I like this. Btw. He talked about Visual Cobol (Cobol in VS) and affordable mobile development environments.
Victory Fernandes said
I agree!
Keep it simple!
Serg said
I like this guy more than the pompous “Delphi World Tour’s”.