Borland Software Corp. today announced that it's gearing up for the release of a new collaborative, Web-based software tool.
The new tool, called TeamSource Developer Service Provider (DSP), is a Web-based software development environment that allows developers in disparate locations to collaborate on the same application development project. Borland plans to offer TeamSource as a hosted application but has no plans to offer it as a server-based product.
"It's not something we're planning to do at this time," said Ben Riga, director of marketing for DSP at Borland. Riga said the product would be easier to use and maintain as a hosted service.
But John Meyer, an analyst at Giga Information Group Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said some large firms might consider a hosted Web development environment a security risk.
"There is always a question with large enterprises that their digital development could get commingled or be vulnerable to hackers on a site that's open on the Web," said Meyer. "Overall, the features and functions are right on the mark, but it may only be of interest to smaller companies that are less risk-averse."
TeamSource will include services such as secure identity management, flexible access control, source-code management and business messaging, when it ships in late September. Pricing has yet to be determined.
The Scotts Valley, California-based vendor first announced the DSP initiative last November. At that time, it also changed its name from Inprise Corp. back to Borland and acquired Bedouin Inc., a Chicago-based development shop, to jump-start the DSP initiative.
Borland built DSP with Bedouin's Web-based application development product, officials said.
TeamSource supports Borland's development tools, such as JBuilder, Delphi and C++ Builder. Support for Kylix, Borland's Linux development tool, is slated for January, Riga said, adding that Borland will also consider supporting development tools from other vendors.
For the first quarter ended March 31, Borland posted income of US$5.9 million, or $0.08 per share, on revenue of $52 million. In the same quarter one year ago, it reported a loss of $1 million, or $0.02 per share, on revenue of $46.5 million. Borland plans to release its second-quarter earnings Thursday.
Second-quarter earnings will reflect the absence of $1.5 million in costs from the scrapped merger with Corel Corp. last May. The stock, trading at $16.03 today, has climbed from a 52-week low of $4.17 last October.