Nils Eilers, 17.03.2017
Ulf Klarmann, the managing director of Erpwerk, spoke to Atanas Popov, General Manager of Embarcadero, about the future of Delphi. The background for the interview was the contact with Idera, the new owner of Embarcadero.
Interview with Ulf Klarmann – Managing Director of ERPwerk
As the Managing Director of ERPwerk, a company specializing in application development with Delphi that has completed over 250 projects, Ulf Klarmann has often been asked by his clients about the future of Delphi, especially regarding the maintainability and investment security of large legacy applications.
Many clients are currently considering rewriting existing Delphi applications using Visual Studio C# or other development environments. However, this step requires careful consideration, says Klarmann, as it could involve significant costs and new risks.
For some of his clients, an automatic conversion would be ideal, but that is not easily achievable for various reasons. Additionally, there are risks associated with .NET projects or other architectures regarding their sustainability and investment security for the future; unfortunately, nothing is certain.
Some clients feel compelled to switch because they can no longer find young developers, leading them to conclude that Delphi is outdated. However, Klarmann disagrees.
Delphi in Academia
In the past and still today, many universities and public institutions in Germany are equipped with campus licenses for Delphi, such as:
University of Bremen
University of Applied Sciences Lübeck
Ruhr University Bochum
These institutions use Delphi for education and various software projects, such as wind tunnel research, thereby ensuring at least local availability of qualified Delphi developers.
Regional Distribution of Delphi Projects and Developers
According to Klarmann, there is a clear North-South divide in terms of Delphi projects and developers.
In southern Germany, there are significantly more projects but fewer developers.
In northern Germany, it's the opposite.
"Among very experienced and highly qualified developers, the North-South divide is not as pronounced; only the East is somewhat underserved. This is based on an analysis of our database of over 200 Delphi developers and nearly 300 projects from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Currently, I am not aware of any company that cannot sufficiently meet its demand for Delphi developers, unless it insists on a permanent on-site presence," Klarmann said.
Remote Work and Project Efficiency
According to Klarmann, there are many examples from his own experience showing that on-site presence is often unnecessary.
For example, ERPwerk supports a software manufacturer in the medical sector, where new requirements, migrations, and support can be handled very efficiently from a distance using appropriate tools.
"Working remotely has even led to the optimization of some processes. For example, the project manager/product owner was encouraged by remote collaboration to specify requirements more clearly, reducing the need for extensive rework," Klarmann explained.
This approach also works well in distributed teams, including agile methods like Scrum. Today, many tools like Skype, TeamViewer, Jira, and others effectively support distributed teams.
The advantages of outsourcing development to a company include:
Better utilization of synergy effects (e.g., licensing costs).
Greater availability of developers.
Avoidance of risks related to the current debate about pseudo-self-employment among freelancers.
Growing Popularity of Delphi
The interview was conducted via Skype at the end of 2016 and shows a new dynamic in the maintenance and further development of Embarcadero products.
This is reflected in the rise of Delphi in the TIOBE Index of the most popular programming languages from 20th to 9th place (February 2017) and the increasing number of customers.
There is once again a free Delphi Starter version, an academic program, and a consistent adaptation to modern (including mobile) technologies and developments.
About Ulf Klarmann
Ulf Klarmann (49), with his company ERPwerk (13 employees), has completed over 250 projects around the Delphi development environment.
As an Embarcadero Consulting Partner, ERPwerk offers:
Consulting and project support by developers.
Migration to higher Delphi versions.
Complete takeover of Delphi applications for further development, optimization, and maintenance (outsourcing).
Klarmann studied computer science in Oldenburg and became familiar with Pascal and later Delphi early during his studies.
He also runs the website www.delphientwickler.de and is active as an author on Delphi-related topics.
You can find the original article on entwickler.de.
