How not to repeat the mistakes done in the past
Kylix itself has not been a mistake – the mistakes done mostly have been on the management-side of Borland, and CodeGear simply needs to not repeat those mistakes to make their cross-platform strategy a financial success. Here’s how:
Use the power of the community: CodeGear still has a quite lively Delphi community, with many developers willing to assist CodeGear in making Kylix a success. Back when Kylix was brought to market, this Community had been completely neglected. The Kylix Community Project that had prepared a big set of product improvements for Kylix got blocked by Borland legal from ever releasing their works to the public. This needs to be done better this time – whoever is offering their experience and work to help making your cross-platform offer a success should be supported.
Use the power of your technology partners: Your partners do get asked a lot by their customers about Linux support. Many are willing to support you as it means increased revenue from their customers for them.
Use guerilla marketing as much as possible: A lot of your partners and community members have extremely good contacts to the market and the press. Use those resources to quickly spread the word about Kylix.
Create a decent pricing scheme: Release a Turbo Kylix version that’s affordable to hobbyists in addition to Enterprise offerings.
Focus on Windows Developers: Today the far majority of development, even targeting the Linux platform, is done using Windows on the Desktop. Focus on these developers. Make them aware that they now can target their applications at Linux, too, widening the market for their products. Make it crystal clear that to do so they do not have to abandon Windows or existing work processes they got used to.
Set primary focus on development targeting Linux Servers, not Desktops: The market for Linux on the Desktop is rising without question, but the market for Linux on Servers is already a very strong one. The investment needed to make the Delphi Server/n-Tier/Middleware/web applications usable for Linux is much smaller for both you and your customers than for doing the same thing for Linux Desktops.