Cnet reports that Borland is set to ship C#Builder with DB2. This struck me as an odd match-up. Admittedly Borland wants to get its new .NET development tool out to as many people as possible. And perhaps bundling a copy with DB2 has a better chance of getting to a developer that doesn't already use Visual Studio.NET. But why would IBM want to engage in such a partnership?

Could Borland really be paying IBM such a large fee that it's going to have a significant impact on IBM's bottom line? I doubt it. Does IBM hope to convert some Microsoft developers from SQL Server over to DB2? Perhaps. Or could it be that IBM is hedging its bets and making sure that if .NET does become a serious player that they're not left holding a bag of java beans? Yeah, I like that last explanation. And not just because of the clever pun.

Regardless of the reasons, I'm looking forward to trying out Borland's product. I really liked their Java development tool (JBuilder) and so I have high expectations for their .NET development environment. I wonder if they'll be releasing a VB.NET version.