Long time Delphi community member Nick Hodges (his twitter account for news is http://twitter.com/NickHodges), previously Delphi Product Manager and (until recently) Delphi R&D Manager, is let go by Embarcadero. This was announced by Nick in a forum post titled like my blog post (seemed a good title to me, maybe too impartial, as I though of using "Embarcadero fires Nick"). Here are some excerpts:

I was let go by Embarcadero on Monday. This wasn't my decision. 

I'd like to think that you could say that there was no greater or more passionate Delphi fan and supporter than I -- except maybe for Dr. Bob... In 2006 I moved my family half way across the country to become the Delphi Product Manager. Later, I moved over to be R&D Manager, a job I truly loved....

It's a real bummer that there no longer room at Embarcadero for Delphi's biggest supporter...

Delphi is still the best and coolest development tool around. It will easily survive the loss of one guy. I won't be posting as much here in the coming weeks, I don't think, but I'll be around. 

This is certainly not good news for me, and for many people in the community, as you can see in the thread following his announcement. Despite that he might have had arguments and disagreements with some (at times even with myself, but quite rarely), Nick has always been very prominent in the community. Very few people of the Delphi team have such visibility, which is why this is really a loss to the community. Although I have very limited (and one-sided) information, my idea is that Nick's willingness to stand for what he thinks and fight for it, might have caused him some friction inside the company (and not just recently).

I'm certainly not worried for Delphi as a product, which has survived the loss of other even more prominent people in the past, but every loss is a sad time.

I really hope Nick will remain into the Delphi community and (letting some time go) gets back on good terms with the people of Embarcadero I guess he still has many good friends there who were equally shocked.... but I cannot stop thinking of a very nice book by Seth Godin I read over the last month, Linchpin (should blog about this, but that's another story). Nick was probably the first person to write a Delphi component, good old TSmiley, and he certainly has a role in the product's history.

Let me close this post by wishing all the best to Nick, hoping he can find a good job soon, better (for us) if Delphi-related. And Nick, don't cut too much wood and get too much sun while you wait!