Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The APAC trip, the new CEO; a recap.

This always seems to happen;  I go out of town for a while and major things happen at Borland and now CodeGear.  First of all, let me recap my trip to the Asia/Pacific region.  I started by heading down to Sydney, Australia.  I flew out on Sunday, March 25th and arrived early in the morning on Tuesday, March 27th.  (It was a 14 hour flight... so what happened to my Monday ;-).  I spent the next day getting acquainted with the folks in the Sydney Borland/CodeGear office.

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I met up with Malcolm Groves, who works out of that office. We then flew to Melbourne on March 28th and met up with Tim Jarvis.  I spoke at the ADUG Symposium the following morning.

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After that, Malcolm and I caught a plane to Brisbane and did the same thing the following day.  You can see Marco Cantu at the far right in the first photo.  He had two sessions each day.

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Then it was back to Sydney where I had that Saturday, March 31st to explore Sydney.  So I took the ferry across Sydney Harbor from Circular Quay out to Manley.  I got some good shots of the city, the famous Harbor Bridge (including some good shots of several groups of bridge climbing tour groups) and the famous Sydney Opera House.

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Early the next morning I boarded a flight heading out to Tokyo, Japan.  Geez, there are Starbucks Coffee shops everywhere!

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I also visited the Borland/CodeGear offices there in the Shinjuku district where I was staying.  Fujii-san and Yaegashi-san were both excellent hosts. They had lined up an interview with a local Delphi magazine, a customer visit and later that evening we had a very good dinner meeting with some Delphi community members.  I found it very interesting to speak through an interpreter.  You have to be very conscious of how much you've already said so that the interpreter doesn't get lost.

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Once finished there in Japan, Malcolm and I then boarded a plane to Bangalore, India. We had to stop in Bangkok, Thailand to change planes so I got some photos of their new airport.

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From there we landed in Bangalore, India.  That's a different world...  This is a photo from the hotel room, which was very new and modern.  The contrast between the two was remarkable.

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Then there was the traffic!

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Like Japan, I had a very full day with a customer meeting, met with members of the India Delphi Users Group (InDUG), and finally had two interviews with a couple of Indian IT magazines.  Arul, from the Indian office, did an excellent job of getting all of these events lined up.

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A new CEO.

I had my first one-on-one meeting with CodeGear's new CEO, Jim Douglas (who is in the process of setting up a blog for himself, which is excellent news!).  Besides the fact that I'd been out of town when he started, it was actually good that I had my meeting with him just yesterday.  I was able to read all the press and various comments from the community.  I was able to ask some very hard and specific questions, like “what is your agenda?  Why did you take this job?  What are your long-term and short-term goals?  Are you in it for the long-term or is this just a stepping stone to something else?”  The good thing is that he didn't flinch at any of these very pointed questions and was very candid.  The good news is that he definately took this position with an eye for ensuring the long-term viability of CodeGear.  There is no “pump and dump” agenda here.  So far, I was duly impressed and appreciated his candor as well.  It will be good to hear what Jim has to say in his blog.

I was actually very disappointed when I got word that Ben was leaving.  However, after speaking with Ben the Friday before the announcement and thought about what had transpired over the last year, it was clear that CodeGear was entering a new phase of it's development.  Ben was key in setting CodeGear up and making sure the key positions are filled with the right folks.  But now we need a more of an operational leader that can help drive things that standpoint.  The good news is that Ben is still local and has offered to remain available in an advisory capacity.  His experience and insights will continue to be welcome.

Now that I've got my first international tour done, I'm eager to start visiting some of the other regions and meet even more folks from the community.  Hopefully my next trip takes me to the EMEA and/or South American regions.

7 comments:

  1. hey, hey, hey, allen, what about visiting some of us here, in the States... :-)


    d

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  2. All other issues aside, has anyone one ever admitted to being in it for the "pump and dump"? I appreciate the effort to ask the hard questions, but it can be frustrating to tell the truth from the spin at times. Harder even by proxy.


    Ben's leaving the company probably should have been more transparent. It looks a little funny the way it is now, after all, you rarely hear about someone suddenly getting replaced without public comment and then NOT have something bad crop up about it later.


    It's shame the way it was handled, even I doubt it have to look like a shotgun firing, but there's Borland for ya.

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  3. I welcome Jim's leadership for CodeGear.


    While as I told Allen, the CodeGear team is on of the most inspiring bunch of people I have ever worked with, I also believe they needed someone to take them to the next level.


    I hope that people don't feel we were anything but completely open about the transition. We still are trying...


    I was proud to help start this 24 year old start up over the past year as Swindell puts it, and I look forward to working with the team over the next 20 years in one way or another.


    Allen- keep at it....Developers Matter


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  4. "Now that I've got my first international tour done, I'm eager to start visiting some of the other regions"


    Oh, good. I was worried that after a week of traveling with me you might turn in your passport once you got home :-)


    Thanks again mate


    Cheers

    Malcolm

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  5. Allen,


    Did you bother to at least look over dbx4 source code??? This is a BIIIIG question mark! Your dear friend, the junior Delphi programmer SS may need some help there, for God Sakes Allen, please look! (better have some napkins around when you do...)


    This is NOT the kind of code we are used to get from you guys!


    I wish I could say "keep up the good work" but I simply can't! The rest of Delphi 2007 is great, but whatta h*ck is that?!? Don't you have Delphi programmers left in that building?!? It's a huuuuge laugh for the whole Delphi Community to look over that QA1 level code (just look at DBXCommon.pas or DBXDelegate.pas)...


    Geez,

    FB

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  6. frank,


    I'll need some specifics about what you're describing. I also find it interesting that you're willing to blast someone from behind a pseudonym. If you have a specific complaint, I'd be more than willing to put you in contact with the developer in question so that we can listen to your complaints and maybe better explain our side of things. Go ahead and send me a private email if you would rather keep your identity private.


    Allen.

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  7. Impatient Delphi LoyalistApril 14, 2007 at 1:32 AM

    Allen,


    I noticed that the attendees in the pics are majority in the "older" demographics of developers. Same thing I noticed in Marco Cantu's seminar video. Same case in Meetup groups.


    It is critical that CodeGear develop a plan to attract students to start using CodeGear's dev't tools because they will be the future who will innovate the next wave of software development.


    IDL


    ReplyDelete

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