Saturday, July 17, 2010

Spare Change

The situation is currently unfolding raises more questions than answers about Mr. Nick Hodge's departure:

  • Why is there "radio-silence"(1) at Embarcadero about Mr. Nick Hodges departure? When Mr. Todd Nelson departed, there was an official press release. Nick himself had to post to the newsgroups to explain what happened.

    What kind of Developer Relations is it that when a senior member is let go and there are no official  announcements?

  • Why is it necessary for customers to engage in "megaphone diplomacy" (2) ? Is the customer service department so tied up in bureaucracy such that customers need to post a newsgroup posting to get some help?

    Will the new product manager, Mr. Michael Rezlog, will customers have a kind person to turn to when they have issues?

  • Why is there no sympathy and appreciation for Mr. Nick Hodges? Look at this post. What the Embarcadero people did was swat flies and post stupid newsgroup replies

    After Mr. Nick Hodges leaves, will Delphi developers know what's going on?
    There is still not even one single post about 64-bit Delphi yet.

Embarcadero can probably get any good manager a dime a dozen, but Nick's work is worth a nickel.


1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_silence 
2) http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/megaphone+diplomacy.html

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

NOt Only Radio Silence... Look at Nick Linked-In .... more recommendations than I have ever seen to one person in a couple of days.. (dazes me) ... and the fire fighting attempts (small hose - no water) in response by some Embarcedro types.... on the Nick NG thread....

Anonymous said...

Tod Nielsen was the Borland CEO who got rid of the developer tools side of the business, leaving simetime after that to become CEO of VMWare. In contrast, Nick Hodges was a minor manager sacked for reasons that aren't exactly clear.

Just because Nick was highly visible from an enthusiast/'concerned customer' POV doesn't mean he was particularly 'senior' within the company itself. Remember, Embarcadero had merely inherited him in the role of Delphi Project Manager, and then moved him to a far less significant position within a year of the takeover.

Delphi Haters said...

Mike,

Did you try any VS/ORM or VS/modelling solution?

You could build a whole SAP R/3 custom business solution in weeks than in months with this stuff.

Anonymous said...

Mike - I don't think Embarcadero are simply ambandoning Delphi a la Borland post-Kylix. Rather, they are recognising it as a niche product, and looking for a niche (and therefore high cost, low volume) direction for it.

In itself, such a stategy is obviously not a bad one, and moreover, would end up repositioning Delphi more in line with the database stuff. The question, though, is whether they can actually develop interesting (and relatively bug free!) functionality that enough people will buy at the premium cost demanded.

Frank de Groot said...

Delphihater, you are aware that Nick Hodges was the driving force behind not implementing a 64-bit capable Delphi compiler?

He fought it tooth and nail and even got me banned from the newsgroups when I gave solid arguments for 64-bit, 5, 6 years ago.

I was begging for 64-bit for years and Nick opposed it so much that he got me kicked off the newsgroup.

EMB's firing of Nick is excellent news. I noticed it coincides with a public commitment to a short-term appearance of a 64-bit beta.

There may be some hope for Delphi after all. I'll certainly buy a copy as soon as it can do what FPC has been doing for half a decade.

Delphi Haters said...

Hi Frank,
how are you doing?

Read the newsgroup forgiveness article I wrote.

Seems like lot of people have long memories and little of forgiveness.

Delphi Haters said...

Frank,

64-bit Delphi compiler?

LOL

I've been waiting since 2005...