[DUG] FW: A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero

Mon Sep 21 14:17:19 NZST 2009

Interesting post Malcolm.

I have one question for Richard and you... what is the best way to make sure
we find out about all discounted upgrade or purchase offers? I get some but
I’ve also had a few times in the past (probably not recently so maybe it is
fixed) where offers have come and gone before I found out about them.

Cheers,

David.

From: delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz] On
Behalf Of Malcolm Groves
Sent: Monday, 21 September 2009 1:26 p.m.
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero

Hi all,

I’ve just read through quite a few of the messages in this thread (not  all,
I admit) and there are a few things in here I should respond to. 

> Actually, afaict Embarcadero have been absolutely silent on the 

> matter.  The policy change has leaked out only via *some* resellers.

Nothing has leaked. Official announcements are coming, but I notified our
Asia sales staff and asked them to notify our partners and customers last
week so we could give people as much notice as possible (also for another
reason, see the end of this email). I posted advance notice to the ADUG list
here in Aus, and would have posted on this list except Richard asked if he
could post it. As our local representative in NZ, it made sense to me that
he do it. Nothing underhand going on. 

Also, the reason I haven’t responded sooner is that I only check the lists
every week or so, unless someone alerts me to something that needs more
urgent attention.

Ø  I still feel cheated that at no time were those of us who bought Delphi
2005 which still has many unpatched major problems 

Ø  given the opening to more reasonibly  ($) upgrade from it.

I’m sorry you feel like this, but this is not accurate. Multiple times a
year we offer discounts/bundles/third-party value-adds, etc to upgraders.
I’ve got a partial list here and it shows that since 2006 was released we’ve
done at least 6 such offerings in NZ, and I haven’t bothered going through
the rest of my email archive to see if there were more. Now, the offers we
made may not have been enough to make you accept, that’s a separate issue,
but saying we’ve made no offers to previous users is plainly wrong. 

In terms of updates, we haven’t really changed our policy for a long time.
Leaving aside people who pay for higher levels of support, we typically
release update packs during the first 6-12 months of the product’s life (eg,
3 update packs for 2005, 2 update packs for 2006 + 11 hotfix packs, etc) but
once a later version has come out, these typically slow down or stop
entirely. That may not be what everybody wants, I appreciate that, but
despite multiple attempts over the years it’s proven difficult if not
impossible to get update packs for older releases on the schedule. So,
despite wishing it were different, I doubt we’re going to be able to change
that. 

I’ve probably missed some questions, feel free to tell me if I have, but let
me finish on a slightly more positive note. 

In addition to giving people as much notice as possible, part of the point
of letting people know about this change in advance is so that I could gauge
the reaction. 

Today we treat someone who last invested in a Delphi license 14 years ago
with Delphi 1, exactly the same as someone who invested 1 year ago with
2009. I firmly believe we should give people who spent money with us
recently some benefit, especially those who spent money with us during the
years when you couldn’t have blamed them for keeping their wallet in their
pocket. So, while I support the spirit of this change, the detail of where
we draw the cutoff line is still a topic I think we can adjust. In talking
with customers and staff and watching the discussions on various groups
around the region and I think I’ve seen enough to go back to our internal
discussion and suggest we need to change our current proposal. So, your
feedback is being heard, despite what you might believe from some of the
comments.

Lastly, can I just make a request for a fair go for the current Embarcadero
team? We are well aware that we cannot ignore the “legacy” of decisions made
by Borland Executives over the years, and we are trying extremely hard to
walk the line of investing to take the product back above the historic
levels of quality and innovation you came to expect, and at the same time
keeping it a profitable business for our owners. I think the local team are
very open to accommodating requests from customers when they are brought to
us (I think I’ve approved most of the requests for special consideration
I’ve seen in recent memory) and hopefully some of you have experienced that.
I understand that some of you feel like you may have beaten your heads
against a brickwall at Borland for too long, but can I just ask that if you
have an issue, you bring it to us and see if we can work out a solution. If
we can’t keep you happy, of course you should criticise us, but given
everything that seems to have changed for the better over the last 12-15
months, I’d appreciate it if you could give us a chance to fix the issues
before shooting us. My contact details are at the bottom of the email, you
should absolutely feel free to use them.

I’ll try and take a more regular look at this thread for the next few days.

Cheers

Malcolm

Malcolm Groves
Senior Director, Asia Pacific
Embarcadero Technologies, Inc. |  <http://www.embarcadero.com/>
www.embarcadero.com 
Level 2, 100 Clarence Street, Sydney, NSW 2000
 <mailto:mgroves at codegear.com> mgroves at embarcadero.com

Mobile: +61 416 264 204 | Skype: malcolmgroves

USA: (510) 962 5736 | UK: 020 3289 1788

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