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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>A very gracious offer Richard!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>From my point of view as a small commercial software house there
is no way we would offer open ended bug fixes for any of our software UNLESS
there was an ongoing support fee being charged. It is just not feasible to
charge enough money upfront to provide open ended support forever – you would
price yourself out of the market because most people wouldn’t place enough
value on that. And in fact most customers would upgrade to the newer versions anyway
so the high upfront purchase costs would end up subsidising the few customers who
stay on the oldest version to the detriment of the majority who upgrade.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>That’s not to excuse Borland for selling Delphi 8 and Delphi
2005 and then washing their hands of the mess... if you sell software THAT BAD
then you should go into major damage control and try to do something about it
even if it does hurt your bottom line majorly. Obviously Borland didn’t
and I think it cost them a lot (for example we used Delphi 5 and would have
been ripe for an upgrade around about Delphi 8/2005 but we saw the roadkill and
stuck with Delphi 5 until very very recently). However to pin the Delphi 8/2005
debacle on Embarcadero is harsh.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>On the OTHER hand (I have a lot of hands here), Embarcadero
started this discussion by refusing to upgrade Delphi 8 and Delphi 2005 anymore.
As people have said in this thread, that is provocative. There probably aren’t
that many people using Delphi 8 and 2005 now (hopefully none for Delphi 8?) but
given how bad it was it would have made sense for them to extend upgrades back
that far. I’m sure the main thrust of their strategy is to try to budge
people still on Delphi 4-7 anyway so it wouldn’t have hurt them much if
at all.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>That’s my 17c.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>David.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz
[mailto:delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Richard Vowles<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, 19 September 2009 7:13 p.m.<br>
<b>To:</b> NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><br>
<br>
And Paul, given your incredible civility in this conversation thus far and
dealing with my outburst of grumpiness with a very well worded email, I will
get Developers Inc to order you a Pro upgrade free of charge (we will pay for
it ourselves). Please let me know in email directly what version you would like
and where to ship it to. And no, I'm not doing it for anyone else - you guys
need to take it up with Borland :-) They'll probably try and sell you <a
href="http://COBOL.NET">COBOL.NET</a><br>
<br>
Richard<o:p></o:p></p>
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