I'm on the train, going back home from Rome after the second leg of the Delphi 2007 and Delphi for PHP presentation in Italy. I've been asked by bitTime, the Italian partner representing CodeGear after the local office was closed, to give in both Milna and Rome a 45 minutes introduction to the new features of Delphi 2007... and there are so many that I had to cram a lot of information into too little time.

The event was well attended, with about 200 people total (130 Milan and 70 in Rome, more or less). There was also an InterBase 2007 presentation and, of course, one covering Delphi for PHP. To reassure the Italian developers that CodeGear is not forgetting them, at the Milan event we had the pleasure to have Peter Shambora (CodeGear's Senior Vice in charge of Worldwide Field Operations).

I met Peter for the first time and had a rather long chat with him, discussing possible future scenarios of how CodeGear could work at best with its many partners and longtime friends. It is also very positive to see similar top level people of the company come and get in touch with the users of their products around the world. By the way, Peter (as well as Ludo, who was also there) speaks quite good Italian having lived in the country in the past.

Differently from recent product launches, the audience was well disposed towards CodeGear and Delphi, much more than they were towards Borland and Delphi 2005 (and partially even 2006). It really looks like the Delphi community, even if smaller, is getting stronger and happier about its tool. Or possibly some of the vocal complainers have given up...

There were of course requests for the usual set of wanted features, 64-bit support, Unicode, a new Kylix compiler, .NET CF designers... and people did ask for an updated roadmap. But as Peter explained, there are legal hassles about giving out long term plans. Hope the Borland lawyers (or CodeGear ones) will find a way to let the company discuss their plans in non/binding terms.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm posting this from the Florence station... and doubt I'll blog a lot in the next few days, as I'm getting ready for my flight to Melbourne. Stay tuned.