The online CodeRage 2008 conference (or CodeRage III, see conferences.codegear.com/coderage08) has finished after a week of sessions and chats. The Closing Keynote was given by Embarcadero CEO Wayne Williams and was very interesting. He mentioned the company status, the willingness to invest (also by acquisitions) despite the slow economy, the fact that the company is speding 40% on R&D, and much more. Things got very interesting as he started covering speficic technologies the company is looking forward. This was the key slide (reposted without permission
Two noticeable things. First, an official reference to Firebird as a database they want to invest to. I guess better Delphi connectivity and DatabaseGear support might come to this database, but it is just my speculation.
Second, there was a clear reference to the idea of working on native versions of Delphi for other operating systems, with specific references to the Mac and Linux. Of course (before I raise any doubt a secodn time) there was no product announcement, no date, nothing like that. But it was stated by Wayne, erferrig to Delphi, that "we are investigating very deep native support for some of the other operating systems..." and by Michael (if I got it right) that "the research is on native Mac and Linux, and we have experience with our past projects" (which looks a reference to Kylix).
I also appreciated the open discussion of (possible) new subscription models, like the one jus tintroduced for 3rdRails 2.0 and TurboRuby. The overall openess of this closing session was remarkable, compared to the past.
Finally, Andres (I was told) posted a nice set of slides of the studio on Flicks. I borrowed to below, even if I'm not sure they'll show up:
