SAN MATEO (12-02-95) - While Borland International Inc. executives celebrate the success of the company's Delphi development tool, some dBase and Paradox users are worried the two standbys of the database market are dying of neglect.
Borland officials deny that either product is in danger of disappearing anytime in the immediate future. But the company has been saying for months that Delphi is Borland's strategic tool.
Some users said that the company is intensifying its efforts to persuade dBase and Paradox users to migrate to Delphi sooner rather than later. For example, seminars aimed specifically at dBase and Paradox users scarcely mention either product, and instead center on the benefits of Delphi for application development, according to sources who have attended.
Even Philippe Kahn, Borland's founder and soon-to-be-departing chairman, acknowledges that the handwriting is on the wall for dBase and Paradox.
"My advice to dBase developers is to learn Delphi," said Kahn. "Paradox and dBase are significant tools, but the future [at Borland] is Delphi, Java-enabled tools, and C++."
Some users don't need any more convincing.
"I have been beating our developers over the head to move to Delphi," said Ted Miglautsch, vice president of product development at Miglautsch Marketing Inc., in Milwaukee. "We like Paradox and we are using it. But for new development, we are trying to push our developers to Delphi."
Others agree but don't want to be faced with an ultimatum.
"Delphi is a good product. They [Borland] would be stupid to not try to sell it. But I still expect them to keep dBase and Paradox intact," said Jeff Rodgers, a dBase developer with Integritech International Inc., in Bedford, Texas.
The company has reassured these users that new development is taking place on both Paradox and dBase. A 32-bit version of Paradox for Windows 95 and Windows NT is already shipping, and a new 32-bit revamp of dBase is currently under development.
The company won't specify a ship date for the dBase update, however, except to say that the product will appear in 1996.
This vagueness is what has some Borland customers worried. One developer, who is familiar with Borland's development plans and requested anonymity, said the company is investing a bare minimum in both dBase and Paradox. Instead, the lion's share of research and development on new technologies -- such as Java enabling -- is going to Delphi.
"Borland has two modes: invest and harvest," said the developer. "They are investing in Delphi and are sucking dBase and Paradox dry."
And as an incentive to its sales representatives to push Delphi, sources report that Borland has ceased paying commission on sales of dBase and Paradox to corporate users.
Analysts said the Delphi focus is an obvious strategy. Both dBase and Paradox have declined in market share during 1995. Paradox is down to 14 percent market share from 25 percent last year, according to SoftTracks Software Research Inc., in Los Altos, Calif., with most of the loss going to Microsoft Access.
dBase has actually held steady from 1994 to 1995, with 3 percent of the xBase development database market. The xBase market still totals some 7.6 million users but is shrinking radically.
"The only hope for dBase is to maintain current users. No new users are moving to xBase," said Nicole Miller, an analyst with International Data Corp., in Mountain View, Calif.
[Copyright 1995 InfoWorld (US), International Data Group Inc. All rights reserved.]