Borland Software Corp. will further its open-source strategy next Tuesday when it details plans for C++ on Linux at the LinuxWorld Conference in New York.
“We are taking our C++ development solution to the Linux platform. We have seen a lot of Linux developers who used to be Unix developers,” said Alison Deane, a senior director of product marketing at Borland, in Scotts Valley, Calif.
Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst at Framingham, Mass.-based International Data Corp., said that the leap from Unix to Linux carries a minimal learning curve.
“From a developer’s point of view, for those developers building regular applications, the Linux and Unix are almost identical,” Kusnetzky said, adding that it is typically only when programmers dig deep into the kernel that they notice significant differences.
Adding C++ for Linux to their repertoire of programming tools will make it easier for those Unix developers to work on Linux, he continued, thereby increasing the usefulness of Linux as a low-cost alternative to Unix.
“Unix people view Linux as a low-end Unix-like operating system,” Kusnetzky said. He said that Linux has become popular for basic infrastructure, such as Web servers, domain name server systems, and DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) servers.
Deane said that Borland is targeting areas in retail, point-of-sale and health care with its open-source initiatives.
C++ is just one of the pieces of Borland’s Linux strategy, Deane said. In addition to Kylix and the application development tools, the company also has an open-source version of its Interbase database in its fleet of open-source technologies.
Also pushing Borland’s strategy, the company next week will demonstrate its Kylix open-source application development platform, Deane said. Borland issued Kylix 2.0 last November, with a bent toward Web services on Linux.
She added that Borland plans to announce C++Builder for Windows next month, but declined to provide details.
Borland Canada in Markham, Ont., is at http://www.borland.ca