Stardate 20010717.0842 (On Screen): Borland wants to provide a development collaboration environment which runs on Borland's servers and will be used by other companies over the Internet, for a monthly fee. Gartner, as usual, waxes enthusiastic about it. (Gartner never met a new business proposition they didn't like [for a fee]. Missing here is the usual prediction of it becoming a billion dollar per year business within five years. Probably the author of the piece just left it out.)
They may get a few customers but this isn't really going to be broadly successful. It isn't going to fly for a couple of reasons. No company is going to keep proprietary data central to their business on a server they don't own and can't control and don't even know that much about, where it could be stolen or changed. I'm also not sure that any sane company will build its development environment around an essential service from another company whose financial situation is precarious. That isn't prudent. (discuss)
