2.3 Discussion: Borland Case Casting Light and Shadows

BORLAND CASE AND THE ETHICAL ISSUES 1

BORLAND CASE AND THE ETHICAL ISSUES 4

Borland case and the ethical issues

Dhananjay Patankar

Ethical/Legal Aspects of Mgmt. (MGMT-512-01AFL, MGMT-512-01BFL)

Indiana Wesleyan University

1/10/2021

BORLAND CASE AND THE ETHICAL ISSUES

Borland Case

The Borland Case relates to the moves of Phillipe Kahn, the Borland International Inc. CEO. Kahn struggles to build his company from scratch and elevate its software deployment and development products to highly competitive ones in the field of Software Development. Kahn determined to overpower Microsoft in programming by building a company from two operating rooms with no investment. The case also relates to Khan's ethical levels, which many people consider the Borland CEO's moves as unethical. Khan used creative techniques to trick the Byte Magazine for his company. According to Khan, the Magazine would reach his target group effectively, but it was too expensive for him. After launching the Quattro Pro program in 1989, the Lotus Development Corporation under Jim Manzi sued Borland for copyright infringement. After a series of allegations, appeals, and petitions, the case ended a 4-4 tie. The United States Supreme Court could not bind any other court because of the tie, and this environment enabled Borland users to utilize the products (Samuelson, 2017).

Levels of Ethical Issues

The ethical issues are societal issues, the stakeholders' issues, internal policy issues, and personal issues (Libretexts, 2020). The four levels of ethical issues are present in the Borland case.

a) Societal issues related to the whole world. In the Borland case, there was lack of sensible influence on the union. Khan enjoyed the magazine company despite his business' income with no attachment to its income source.

b) Stakeholder’s issues evident in the Borland Company involves Khan’s deceitful techniques to promote the magazine company. Interestingly, his techniques ended up being beneficial to the organization's investors and providers. Besides, Khan disregarded the copyright holder's privilege. This action shaped the future of the company.

c) Internal policy issues are evident through Khan's trust in a few workers executing a less complicated job. The CEO creates imaginary thoughts through empty messaging and calling to deceit and convince the client. Amazingly, it turns out more effective, and Khan wins the lottery.

d) Personal issues related to how employees treat their colleagues within an organization. Gary Wetsel replaced Khan. He considers all Board members at the same level with no bias to Khan.

Kahn’s actions

Khan's actions amount to both deception and tricky business. He accused Lotus to the Software Development Community, arguing that its position would taint the future of software development and suppress innovation without precise shreds of evidence to support the allegation. Besides, his target is to market his company as fruitful and diminish the Lotus Company.

Ethics in Kahn’s decision

Khan's actions were unethical despite the positive results. He demonstrated an exploitative trick by deviating from his company's reality in a demonstration, which he successfully tricked the Magazine.

Personal fudge factor 

Personal Fudge Factor is the limit above which people feel bad while cheating. Its factor is a ratio of the actual time to the expected time. Personally, Khan's actions do not violate the personal fudge factor. He tricks his employees to marketing his organization in the Byte Magazine. Moreover, Khan is creative enough to achieve an objective even with limited resources.

Personal actions

In Kahn's position and interested in publicizing the organization and making it more effective, my goal would be to gather enough capital. The main objective would be to gather enough assets to invest in the Byte Magazine legally. It would eliminate the chance of tricking employees and using fraudulent means to publicize the organization. Rather than considering costly Magazine like the Byte Magazine, I would consider other moderate level promoting agencies before accumulating enough capital to anticipate the Byte Magazine. The entire marketing strategy was created based off a lie. I would not follow the same situation. The various ethical levels in an organization could be useful informing a strategy. I would have not tried to attempt to advertise in a magazine that was out of my budget. If I wanted to market my company in a magazine that was out of my budget, I would have tried to find sponsors or external funding. These strategies would have taken longer. It would have been the more systematic and logical way of moving forward.

References Libretexts. (2020, August 15). An Ethics Framework. Retrieved from socialsci.libretexts.org: https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Communication/BookA_Human_Relations_(Dias)A_Be_Ethical_at_Work_A_An_Ethics_Framework Samuelson, P. (2017, January 31). Functionality and expression in computer programs: refining the tests for software copyright infringement. Retrieved from www.law.berkeley.edu: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/FUNCTIONALITY-AND-EXPRESSION-IN-COMPUTER-PROGRAMS.pdf

ETHICAL/LEGAL ASPECPTS OF MGMT

ETHICAL/LEGAL ASPECPTS OF MGMT