Conference 7.286::digital

    you should buy some Borland stock, it's getting cheaper every week.

So has Digital's.

I wonder if there's an opportunity there?  Do we complement each other?  My
understanding of Borland's P/L problems is that they're paying for the
cost of their acquisitions, while their margins in their core compiler and
speadsheet businesses are dropping.  They still have the market share, though
(which is more than we can say).

I don't follow the financials all that closely, so I could be off base here.

   Gary

    I think Borland's poor P/L picture may come as well from the lawsuit
    from Lotus (if I recall correctly) that the original UI of Quattro Pro was
    essentially swiped from Lotus 1-2-3.
    
    I expect Borland to survive, however, and the development tools will
    survive no matter whether Borland survives or not, in some form or
    other.
    
    In any case, I was using Borland as one example of many. Slim margins
    or not, PC and PC-server software are what defines the computing
    industry today.
    
    							Jon

    i really liked the TV commercial about NASDAQ exchange and what
    companies trade in it, they had commercial about microsoft inside it, 
    (as example of whats kind of companies traded in NASDAQ) .

    i thought that was a real powerful commercial about PC software and 
    about microsoft. lots of glossy looking windows and flickering images
    of media and moving images on screens, makes PC software look very
    sharp and powerful and easy to use. if you saw it , iam sure you'll agree.

    i agree with .0, PC's is it, there is almost no kind of software you
    cant get on PC nowadays, we should move to PC's right away , i say,
    keep our existing customers happy, and start moving to write PC
    software. we have better and more software gurus her in DEC than
    microsoft has, so i dont see why we cant do it. 

    /nasser

	The example in .0 of a company moving to a different 
	spreadsheet program because it is touted to be "object oriented"
	just cracks me up.

	The idea that a user of a spreadsheet would see *anything*
	related to object-oriented design or programming at his
	level is ludicrous.

	He might see the ability to manipulate graphics and data,
	rows and columns, documents and spreadsheets, sound and
	fury, sturm und drang, but this is not necessarily 
	"object oriented."

	Just because the darn thing was coded in C++ does *not*
	mean the spreadsheet becomes "object oriented", and
	does not mean any benefits touted by the "object oriented"
	crowd necessarily accrue to the user !

	Might was well have said:

	"We switched to <product name here> because it is a new
	object-oriented, client/server paradigm.  It contains a new
	vision for the future with an architected data flow of
	standards-based algorithms."

	Just a bit of hooey, don't you think ?

	Steve H

	P.S. to author of .0

	For what it's worth, I generally agree with the rest of your
	assessment.  The spreadsheet justification was just too much,
	though.

	Steve H

>The article quoted Sheldon Laube...saying "what Borland has done in
>Quattro Pro for Windows is to make some dramatic steps forward in ease of
>use. Lotus doesn't have anything like it and who knows if they ever will."

I dont hear anything in this message about moving to Borland because
they code in C++....

    PC hardware is a commodity and margins are low.  The gross margin
    on software is more than 10x that of hardware.  Services gross
    margin is about 7x hardware.  (I am speaking in general - in the PC
    industry).
    There are plenty of opportunities for software especially in the
    PC market for non-PC users.  I have noticed that as form factors for
    PC change (i.e. from huge machines to notebook sized PCs) people
    that are not PC proficient are more apt to purchase a PC - but there 
    is still the problem of coming up the learning curve on software.
    I hope that soon - software vendors realize this untapped portion of
    the market and take advantage of it by offering software that is
    foolproof, user friendly and provides a framework for increased
    productivity.
    We need to look at different ways of adding value and uniqueness to
    products while increasing our profit.  Software is one way and
    Services is another.
    
    Nancy P. 
                                                                 

	re: .7

	On re-reading .0, I see that you are right.  The Price
	Waterhouse guy said that they bought the product for
	ease of use and features.

	The object-oriented mention came later in the analyis.

	I still think selling "object oriented" to anyone but a 
	programmer or MIS director is borderline fraud..or, more
	charitably, pure hype -- the magic elixir of the month.

	Steve H

    
    In the same article mentioned in .0, it was stated that Borland
    was taking a considerable gamble by making ALL development object-
    oriented. The assumption is that although this will slow down
    development in the short run, it will reap big dividends. 
    
    From same article as .0, Microsoft's Bill Gates quoted mocking Borland
    by saying something like "if object-oriented programming is so superior, 
    how come you're late releasing XXXX".
    
    Gates didn't get to where he is by being ignorant (the inherent
    delays). I assume Microsoft recognizes that taking object-oriented
    programming to extremes may be counter-productive.
         
    

    Selling a PC application to non-MIS types because its designers used
    object-oriented techniques... is like those camera companies selling
    new cameras to consumers, saying that they use "Fuzzy Logic".  An AI
    person will know what they mean, but the average consumer????
    
    Jim
    
    P.S. Somehow, I'd have thought that a computer-naive consumer would
    think that "fuzzy logic" was a negative, not positive, attribute of a
    product ... fuzzy doesn't sound very "high-tech"?!
    

    ref .11 by ::LANG
    
    >P.S. Somehow, I'd have thought that a computer-naive consumer would
    >think that "fuzzy logic" was a negative, not positive, attribute of a
    >product ... fuzzy doesn't sound very "high-tech"?!
    
    good point you outline, how many people really know what fuzzy logic is? 
    even good software programmer sometimes confuse it, so i give here a 
    simple example to help show what is it for all of us, the idea of fuzzy 
    logic is can be best expressed via an example, see this fuzzy logic 
    code path:

     IF A THEN
        do_that_thing()
     ELSE
        dont_do_that_thing()
     ELSE
        do_a_different_thing_all_together()
     END IF

    /nasser

    I think the gist of .0 is that Borland's methods are now more cost
    efficient due to ease of modifications/enhancements and the high gain
    through code reusability.  Their methods ensure longer and lower cost
    code life, thus appealing more to (knowledgable) customers.
    
    Williams

    echo .1
    Borland stock, close 1/1/92: 82 1/4
    Borland stock, 11:30 today:  28 1/4
    

RE: Various about object oriented

I think there are actually several definitions of object 
oriented floating around.  The principle ones that I am
aware of are...

1)  The Computer Science one as implemented by things
	like C++ and SmallTalk

2)  The end user one that goes something like...

	Object oriented is the ability to use "real"
	objects on the screen instead of commands.
	
	This one is pretty much the same as GUI.

Ken Slattery

    Re .5:
    
    > 	The idea that a user of a spreadsheet would see *anything*
    > 	related to object-oriented design or programming at his
    >	level is ludicrous.

    While it might not be true in this case, there are certainly useful
    ways that object-oriented design could appear to a spreadsheet user. 
    For example, suppose the user had some figures that had been declared
    as dollars and other figures that represented time, like a year or
    date.  If the user entered a formula in another cell that attempted to
    add figures from these different groups, the spreadsheet could give a
    warning.  The user of a spreadsheet, at least the one who designs
    templates, is a programmer of sorts, and the object-oriented facets of
    their data will be available to them.
    
    
    				-- edp