[DUG] Delphi Specials

[David Brennan]

I’m running out of colours! Maroon then.

 

From: delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Jolyon Smith
Sent: Friday, 22 October 2010 10:38 a.m.
To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List'
Subject: Re: [DUG] Delphi Specials

 

Adding green.  J

 

From: delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of David Brennan
Sent: Friday, 22 October 2010 09:55
To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List'
Subject: Re: [DUG] Delphi Specials

 

My comments in a lovely purple. ;-)

 

From: delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Jolyon Smith
Sent: Friday, 22 October 2010 8:53 a.m.
To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List'
Subject: Re: [DUG] Delphi Specials

 

Ø  Aw nuts you are just being a stirrer.

 

Why is pointing out facts considered stirring?

 

You obviously have pretty strong feelings about it Jolyon but you jumped on John pretty hard and if I was him I would certainly feel you were being deliberately antagonistic. You didn’t just point out facts, you had an axe to grind.

 

Well, as did John I’d say.  

 

Possibly a fair point. ;-).

 

Ø  What I am saying is do not punish Borland and Embarcadero for making a product that was reliable and well usable for 10+ years.   Reward them by spending a small amount of money to keep them in business. And into the bargain enjoy a much better version of Delphi.

 

How about Embarcadero punishing their customers for not having provided compelling reasons to upgrade?

 

You believe the former and refuse to accept that perhaps part of the reason is that v5 was so good.

 

How on earth do you reach that conclusion?

 

The original poster hadn’t upgraded since Delphi 4 – by definition they haven’t felt the need to upgrade.  Arguing about whether they were given reasons to upgrade is meaningless.

 

It isn’t really worth arguing about but it was you who bought up the ‘not having provided compelling reasons to upgrade’, not me. So it seemed a pertinent point that Embarcadero have provided many reasons to upgrade BUT Delphi 5 was good enough that you could happily ignore them. Even Wallace acknowledges that he might get benefits from the new versions but he personally doesn’t spend enough time doing Delphi development to justify the cost and learning a new environment. And implicit in his position is that Delphi 5 still works very well.

 

And I simply pointed out that John’s suggestion that they upgrade NOW was to ignore the fact that Embarcadero have slammed the door on that option for the original poster.  They no longer have the choice of upgrading, they are now faced with having to buy a NEW USER license, from scratch.

 

Agreed. But then their current version is 12 years old. At what point does it stop being reasonable to expect cheap upgrades to the latest version? Personally I think 12 years is well past that point but I realise others may have different opinions.

 

Conversely I think the 3 year/version rubber-banding that Embarcadero are going with is a little too short. I can understand where they are coming from, most software companies really want their customers on subscriptions these days and a reasonably short valid upgrade period fits that BUT to match the more stringent upgrade criteria I think they should further reduce the Upgrade pricing if you are upgrading to the same product – if they want to treat it as more of a subscription then they should move to more subscription like upgrade pricing. I guess their current promotion has done just that with Delphi XE Pro in a limited context so maybe they are experimenting with the idea. 

 

Compare and contrast with purchasing a valid license for Delphi and then having to go around the houses and jump through numerous hoops in order for it to acknowledge that yes indeed I am entitled to “activate” and use the software I have bought and paid for.

 

We haven’t really had any problems. Sounds like others have which is obviously bad.

 

Borland blew it in a major way around Delphi 8/2005, no question about that and I can understand punishing them for it. 

 

And more recently (at the risk of getting sidetracked) Embarcadero have blown it again (imho) with addressing Unicode and 64-bit separately, creating TWO significant barriers to upgraders and also failing to make good on indications of 64-bit delivery and introducing new priorities and changing roadmaps and product direction without updating those roadmaps until after the fact.

 

Agreed, I would prefer they had done things differently (I think Embarcadero may well feel the same about the Unicode issue by now). Neither was a disaster on anywhere near the scale of Delphi 8/2005 though, just decisions I disagree with and which I think were bad business decisions from their point of view. I am confident they would have made noticeably more sales post Delphi 2007 if Delphi 2009-XE could compile both Unicode and Ansi versions. We’re a good example (we are stuck at Delphi 2007 for now).

 

But at some point it becomes cutting off your nose to spite your face... anyone who develops seriously in Delphi needs Delphi to be a viable commercial product and that means being willing to pony up for some money occasionally in my opinion.

 

You saw the part where I complain that they do not provide an option for me to spend the money that is worth it to me?

 

I WANT to spend money with Embarcadero, but they refuse to make available a product that suits the use to which I wish to put it at a price that is reasonable and that I can afford when set alongside all of the other demands on my financial resources.

 

Yeah. Both you and Wallace are talking about a non or semi commercial situation. I think for someone in business the pricing isn’t too bad but they don’t cover the non commercial market well at all. I don’t think they know how to provide a version that is useful enough for people to use it yet locked down enough that it doesn’t cannabilise their commercial sales. Their competitors that provide free versions either don’t need the full revenue stream (eg Microsoft) or aren’t commercial projects (eg Eclipse). Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t find a solution, in fact it is probably critical. Just means there may not be an easy solution.

 

 

 

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