Gartner quotes, source: Borland Enhances Its Appeal to Developers With TogetherSoft Buy, 11/1/02~ Driver, Duggan, Feiman "Borland plans to continue investing in both the Borland JBuilder and Together ControlCenter product lines and to create "hybrid solutions" that integrate design and development for Java, .NET and other platforms. " "Borland is a market leader in application development (AD) tools focused on the Java, Linux and Microsoft platforms." TogetherSoft is an up-and-coming tool vendor that has largely carved its market niche by tightly integrating application design and modeling with traditional construction practices. Combined with Borland's recent acquisition of Starbase, this deal has the potential to: Significantly enhance Borland's market appeal to application developers Enable Borland to compete more directly with other market-leading vendors, such as Rational Software Strengthen Borland's independence, which appeals to developers who do not wish to lock themselves into tools directly provided by middleware platform vendors, such as IBM and Oracle" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Meta Group, source: Borland Fills In the Life Cycle Integration & Development Strategies Application Delivery Strategies Delta 1236, 17 December 2002 Thomas Murphy "Borland has recently been on an acquisition spree, adding several companies (Starbase, TogetherSoft, BoldSoft, and VMGear) that will extend its reach beyond its stronghold in application development tools and cover the majority of the application development life cycle." "These acquisitions not only strengthen Borland's position, but also provide benefits for users of the acquired products by placing Borland's solid operations behind them." "As application development becomes more complex, development organizations require tools that better integrate the development life cycle. Traditionally, the market has been divided into companies that provide integrated development environments (IDEs - code editing, compilation, and debugging) and vendors that provide tools for developers (requirements, modeling, version control, and configuration management). During the past three years, these tools have become increasingly more integrated, with vendors crossing the previous boundaries (see ADS Deltas 1129 and 1165). "Three years ago, Borland was struggling to stay off life support. It has rallied strongly, regaining its focus and now utilizing the benefits of its strong operations (cash and execution ability) to maintain its market-leading position." "Borland has been utilizing its current cash and stock positions to extend its reach around the complete development life cycle. This gives it the market jump to deliver consolidated development solutions for both Java and .Net." Because of its strong development market position, Borland’s moves will place increased pressure on other independent life-cycle vendors (e.g., Rational, Serena, Merant, Embarcadero). Borland’s solution set can be divided into four areas: IDEs, infrastructure and frameworks, life cycle, and professional services (see Figure 1)." "Borland’s original market was development tools. Since it has refocused itself, it has once again become a dominant player in the IDE market." "Borland is strong because of its platform independence (i.e., supporting .Net and Java, as well as several J2EE application servers) and the overall stability and feature set of its products. " "With the acquisition of TogetherSoft, Borland gains another strong IDE that is oriented toward model-driven development. This will enable it to maintain a dominant position in the Java market and make it a viable alternative to Microsoft’s Visual Studio for the .Net platform."