The End of an Era

Today, along with Borland's announcement that it would acquire software testing vendor Segue Software, it also announced its intention to divest itself of its IDE lines. That's right, Borland is getting out of the IDE business and plans to concentrate on the ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) market.

Back in the day, you couldn't get me to code in anything but Borland's IDE. They were miles ahead of Microsoft, even when both moved to purely Windows GUI based IDEs. And then something happened. Something nasty. Something mean. Something akin to insider trading. And Borland fell behind in the market. Then it changed its name. Hello Inprise, goodbye Borland. Then it changed its name back to Borland.

Hello old friend, it's nice to see you again.

Then Microsoft wolfed up the entire market and drove Borland into another world. One where it was rarely used, even though it had its loyal user base. Sort of like the Grateful Dead. Groupies who followed Borland no matter where it went.

And now, like Jerry Garcia, Borland's IDE is going to be history. And all I can say is that, well, Borland and coding went together a lot better than Garcia and music.So goodbye Borland IDE. I'll remember you fondly. That product box will always have a place in my house, right next to my Apple ][e and that old Atari 2600. Reminders of a much simpler time, when market share was determined by how good your product was, not by how good your marketing department was, and developers still had a say in what tools they used.