They could always introduce a 100% free enterprise version, where the Exe's generated will not run without a royalty driven licence provided by Embacardo :)<div><br></div><div>of course, they'd need sales agents to interact with developers to determine fair cost and value of the distribution licence.. </div>
<div><br></div><div>But again.. if you are not willing, or cant afford to pay up front.. that gives you an option of developing for free and giving them a profit share in renumeration for their valuable product.. <br><div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 1:53 PM, David Brennan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dugdavid@dbsolutions.co.nz">dugdavid@dbsolutions.co.nz</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Holy Great Wall of Text Batman! ;-)<br>
<br>
Very interesting suggestion tho and one which makes perfect sense to me. The<br>
boat has likely shipped in terms of gaining widespread entry into western<br>
academic institutions but there are other countries (the deal with Russia<br>
being one example) and even in the western world it would undoubtedly lead<br>
to a few enthusiastic new users.<br>
<br>
The downside is the effort they would need to put into producing these<br>
versions... but if they are serious about rebuilding Delphi then it seems a<br>
reasonable use of resources.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
David.<br>
</font><div class="im"><br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: <a href="mailto:delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz">delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz">delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz</a>] On<br>
</div><div class="im">Behalf Of Jolyon Smith<br>
Sent: Tuesday, 22 September 2009 1:32 p.m.<br>
To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List'<br>
</div><div><div></div><div class="h5">Subject: Re: [DUG] Budget/Turbo editions of Delphi<br>
<br>
I posted on exactly this issue on my blog last night:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.deltics.co.nz/blog" target="_blank">www.deltics.co.nz/blog</a><br>
<br>
My idea is to cut down the number of 3rd party components (anything that can<br>
be obtained/bought separately should be taken out. That's DUnit, IntraWeb,<br>
Indy etc).<br>
<br>
I'd also take out "Professional" features such as refactorings and modeling<br>
support. The focus would be on a hobbyist user, not a "Free" version of a<br>
professional tool, so take these higher end/more advanced features out.<br>
<br>
Then incorporate digital "watermarking" of executables and design-time<br>
packages.<br>
<br>
With executables a splash screen could be inserted, possibly customizable to<br>
an extent, but unavoidable, identifying it as a "Community Edition"<br>
generated app. The splash screen would be suppressable when running an app<br>
inside the IDE (for debugging etc).<br>
<br>
For design-time packages a protocol would be devised between the IDE and the<br>
package. Any package compiled with the Community Edition could only be<br>
installed into the IDE instance used to compile it. So a developer could<br>
still share their work with the community but if sharing IDE components they<br>
would *have* to provide source.<br>
<br>
To be clear, a Community Edition IDE will accept components compiled with a<br>
Professional Edition IDE (or higher, obviously) but components compiled with<br>
a Community Edition IDE will only install into the IDE used to compile them.<br>
So people could still buy and install additional 3rd party components that<br>
they may need.<br>
<br>
This would be the free Community Edition.<br>
<br>
The license would permit commercial use, but the digital watermarking would<br>
provide an incentive for anyone wishing to convey a more professional image<br>
to upgrade to a non-Community Edition IDE.<br>
<br>
<br>
So, then I would create a "Standard Edition" which re-instates some of the<br>
functionality removed from the Community Edition. Perhaps returns *some* of<br>
the refactorings and components maybe, but more crucially removes the<br>
digital watermarking. i.e. splash screen etc.<br>
<br>
This would be priced at almost exactly half the price of Professional. $499<br>
in US terms. updates from one Standard Edition to the next (Delphi 2010 SE<br>
-> Delphi 2011 SE) would be $199 (US).<br>
<br>
(Some may recognize this as the price point of the old Turbo Professional,<br>
which of course was superceded by the equivalent functionality, single<br>
personality Studio products at > twice the price).<br>
<br>
Upgrades from Standard Edition to Professional (or other) Edition would be<br>
simply the difference in cost between the SE and the higher Edition. So in<br>
the case of Professional: Delphi 2010 SE -> Delphi 2010 Professional =<br>
($899 - $499) = $400 (US).<br>
<br>
For someone currently on a Professional license, this means that a Standard<br>
Edition will cost about the same as a Professional Upgrade, but once they<br>
have a Standard Edition, *staying* current would be a lot cheaper, and for a<br>
hobbyist a Standard Edition is likely to be far more relevant to their needs<br>
than Professional.<br>
<br>
<br>
Ooops, I seem to have repeated a lot of my blog post. Oh well, go read it<br>
any way.<br>
<br>
:)<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: <a href="mailto:delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz">delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz">delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz</a>] On<br>
Behalf Of John Bird<br>
Sent: Tuesday, 22 September 2009 1:02 p.m.<br>
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List<br>
Subject: [DUG] Budget/Turbo editions of Delphi<br>
<br>
If Turbo versions of Delphi are not available, it is a great idea to have<br>
them as PR to get students getting free versions to learn on. Without<br>
Embarcadero losing money on commercial sales.<br>
<br>
Interested to hear others ideas how such editions could work.<br>
<br>
My ideas:<br>
<br>
-Preventing installation of components as in the past is simple - but some<br>
large scale commercial programs could still be made, so I think it needs<br>
more.<br>
<br>
-Either disabling printing if included (Rave reports) or all printing<br>
carries a water mark "Student Edition - not for commercial use".<br>
<br>
-All program windows contains some signature eg "Student edition" in the<br>
title bar<br>
<br>
-some smart restrictions on what can be produced.......eg cheap or free DB<br>
licences limit to often only 5 connections. Maybe limit units to 4000<br>
lines of code, or forms to 30 components total, and listviews and grids to<br>
200 lines,<br>
<br>
-Programs might only run for 1 hour maximum and exit with a reminder screen,<br>
<br>
or will not run at all after say 1-2 years.<br>
<br>
-Alternatively charge strictly on a usage basis - eg start with $20 free<br>
credit. Every compile takes 10cents of credit, every debugger run takes 20<br>
cents off, editing takes off 1 cent per hour. When credit is used up IDE<br>
stops working, and you have to uninstall and reinstall. (Transaction based<br>
<br>
charging like this is a favourite of mine, incorporated into some of my<br>
programs).<br>
<br>
-Expiry date on IDE, have to uninstall and reinstall to get more.<br>
<br>
-Student edition could cost say $25 or be free, depending on how restricted.<br>
<br>
A combination of more than one of these would mean commercial developers<br>
would still get the real versions, and be not too mean on students.<br>
<br>
Choose what is good to limit, and let them otherwise have a fully functional<br>
<br>
version - in reality they won't be writing very large programs, so that is<br>
what to limit.<br>
<br>
Personally I would favour the combination of<br>
-Watermarks on printing<br>
-limits on grid size and number of components on a form<br>
-programs run for 1 hour maximum.<br>
<br>
John<br>
<br>
<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Kyley Harris<br>Harris Software<br>+64-21-671-821<br>
</div></div>