Stories about: Borland

1979: Novell Data Systems is founded in Provo, Utah, as a maker of computers and disk operating systems.

Some early programmer names are familiar to even the most novice of software developers. You may never have seen a line of code written by Bill Gates, or written any application in BASIC (much less for the Altair). But you know Gates' name, and the names of a few others.

Some early programmer names are familiar to even the most novice of software developers. You may never have seen a line of code written by Bill Gates, or written any application in BASIC (much less for the Altair). But you know Gates' name, and the names of a few others.

Microsoft has done more to popularize graphical programming than any other vendor. The company's development tools, led by Visual Basic and Visual Studio, have been used by millions of software developers over the past two decades.

Micro Focus International raised its offer for Borland Software to $US1.50 per share on Tuesday, up from $1 in early May, to counter a rival offer from a mystery bidder. It's the second time Micro Focus has had to raise its offer. Another bidder dropped out of the running last month.

Borland Software, which is in the process of being acquired by Micro Focus, continues to release products bearing the company nameplate.

Micro Focus International plans to beef up its range of software quality assurance tools with two acquisitions it announced Wednesday.

Old computer products, like old soldiers, never die. They stay on the market--even though they haven't been updated in eons. Or their names get slapped on new products that are available only outside the U.S. Or obsessive fans refuse to accept that they're obsolete--long after the rest of the world has moved on.

Pity the innovators -- always hounded by the jealous hordes who clamor for a sliver of their success. And so it goes with Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, though exactly who's the innovator in this scenario is a matter of some debate.

Microsoft's a dinosaur that didn't know its dead yet. The cloud computing meteor was speeding its way, and when pervasive computing in the cloud became a reality in about 2015, Microsoft was all but dead. Why? Because the Windows and Office revenues collapsed as users finally stop buying upgrades they don't need, and cloud offerings via the browser took their place. Poof! Gone was 80 percent of Microsoft's profits. And gone was the money to invest in technologies that took multiple versions to get right -- if they ever got it right -- such as the Xbox, Zune, Microsoft Dynamics, and MSN.