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Comment by Kroem3r | Hacker News Reader

This is the one thing that I will not forgive MS for. They bought the lead guy from Borland rather than compete against the product. I guess it's all fair in business, but it was a gutless defense of VB - an admission, actually - that VB wasn't up to the competition.

The summary for me is that Delphi was more productive and way better designed than VB with the performance of C. I never understood why it didn't have a broader following. My guess is that developers enjoyed the challenge of C/C++, call it an aesthetic judgement.

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Microsoft bought not only Anders but also about 30 other Borland developers over the course of several years. Borland sued, but eventually reached an out of court settlement.

I sometimes wonder what Delphi would look like today, had Anders not joined the MS fold.

Micrsoft did far nastier things to Borland. E.g. During the Windows 95 preview stage they added code to the app launcher that would detect binaries compiled with Borland products and generate bogus errors.

There's plenty not to forgive Microsoft for. It's just so much cuddlier mow that it's a little desperate.

Myself as well. I really really liked Borland products. I had an emotional attachment to them. I got Borland C/C++ (3?) as a Christmas present shrink-wrapped one year and I thought it was the best Christmas present ever. Lots of people learned C using K&R's book - I learned C/C++ from reading Borland's manuals.

Long story short, when MS turned the full weight of their organization on Borland and sunk them it opened my eyes to MS's corporate behaviour. That's how I learned that MS always played dirty. It set me out on the road to looking for alternatives to Windows. It's ultimately why I'm writing this in Firefox on Ubuntu.

In ref to the blog post (or whatever it is) I thought Delphi was no more. Just goes to show, here is a link: http://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi

WOW. I had no idea.

From 1997: "Borland International and Microsoft have settled a Borland-launched lawsuit that started on May 7, 1997, in Santa Clara County, CA. In the suit Borland alleged that Microsoft had hired 34 Borland employees over the past 30 months in order to steal Borland trade secrets."

Just WOW. 34 employees.

Yes, his leaving was bad for Delphi, though good for him financially. A pity. That's why it is a good thing that Free Pascal and Lazarus are there now.

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