{"id":1492,"date":"2013-08-21T11:44:01","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T23:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/?p=1492"},"modified":"2013-08-21T17:19:52","modified_gmt":"2013-08-21T05:19:52","slug":"are-embarcadero-really-interested-in-new-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/1492\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Embarcadero Really Interested in New Users ?"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">[Estimated Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\">2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes]<\/span><\/span><p>In replying to a comment on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tpersistent.com\/?p=843\">his blog post<\/a> about the pricing of the mobile add-on pack (XE4 &#8211; no news on XE5 as yet that I am aware of), Larry Hengen appears to be one of those people still under the belief that there are any &#8220;new buyer&#8221; type customers for Delphi.  Are there ?  Really ?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It seems to me, even if the wider evidence were not enough (same old &#8211; increasingly old &#8211; faces at the annual product launch) that the product management and pricing direction of Delphi in the past 2-3 years is strongly indicative that Embarcadero are working to extract while they can the maximum $ from a user base that is, if not dwindling, then is certainly not expanding at a useful rate.<\/p>\n<p>Not least this is writ large in their multi-platform strategy that emphasises the preservation of existing code (given a white-wash of &#8220;Native&#8221; marketing labels to make it more palatable).<\/p>\n<p>Their pricing and release strategies appear geared toward leveraging maximum dollar from <strong>existing<\/strong> customers, but to any prospective new customer must convey an uncomfortable sense of insecurity, given that it includes but is not limited to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>attempts to restrict usage permitted under current license terms with changes to those terms along with slapping on extra &#8220;Add-on&#8221; packs to permit such usage in the future (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/?p=1097\">Pro EULA changes<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>bait-and-switch of features (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/?p=1403\">now you have it, now you don&#8217;t and must pay more for it, iOS support)<\/a><\/li>\n<li>the tightening of upgrade eligibility criteria<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t seem to me that a prospective new user is going to feel warm and fuzzy about the prospect of being a customer of a company with such a track record.<\/p>\n<p>The final exhibit is the lip service paid to the needs of new users.<\/p>\n<p>There is no coherent set of Trial products.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of being able to simply trial the actual product they are interested in (unless it is Architect SKU) a prospective customer has to download and install the behemoth that is the Architect SKU and then trawl through the feature matrix to find out what features in their &#8220;trial&#8221; will actually be in the product they will buy.<\/p>\n<p>Then of course there is the so-called &#8220;Starter&#8221; edition, completely lacking the one, critical learning tool for any new user &#8211; the VCL source.  The Starter Edition is such a begrudging token gesture that I am surprised that it has survived even this long.  More lip service I suspect.<\/p>\n<p>The point being that <strong>none<\/strong> of this speaks to a healthy influx of new users.  <strong>All<\/strong> of it suggests a desperate need to squeeze, cajole and extort as much revenue from a locked in user base as possible before those users also finally dig their way out of the hole.<\/p>\n<p>But then this could all just be a bafflingly poor strategy by Embarcadero.  Perhaps there are new users, despite Embarcadero&#8217;s best efforts to put them off.<\/p>\n<p>Are there ?  Does anybody know of any genuine new users of Delphi ?<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t mean existing customers adding one or two licenses (or more).  I mean genuine, first time, all new, never-done-it-before Delphi customers ?<\/p>\n<p>Answers on a postcard please.  \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">[Estimated Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\">2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes]<\/span><\/span> In replying to a comment on his blog post about the pricing of the mobile add-on pack (XE4 &#8211; no news on XE5 as yet that I am aware of), Larry Hengen appears to be one of those people still under the belief that there are any &#8220;new buyer&#8221; type customers for Delphi. Are there [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[4],"tags":[292,119,176],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1TKYv-o4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":653,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/653\/","url_meta":{"origin":1492,"position":0},"title":"RAD Studio &#8220;XE&#8221;","date":"11 Aug 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"News is starting to come out about the upcoming release of Delphi, RAD Studio XE. So what can we expect? Well, based on what has been revealed so far, anyone thinking that the time that has passed since we were supposed to have received 64-bit support has been well spent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":636,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/636\/","url_meta":{"origin":1492,"position":1},"title":"Nick Hodges &#8220;Let Go&#8221; by Embarcadero","date":"19 Jul 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I hadn't posted on this news before as I expected there to be a veritable deluge of opinion flooding the Delphi blog-o-sphere and didn't see any point adding to that noise, but there has been a curious silence on the matter, so here is my two-penneth after all. Nick Hodges\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1554,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/1554\/","url_meta":{"origin":1492,"position":2},"title":"Not so Special Upgrade Pricing for XE5","date":"12 Sep 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"XE5 is officially out today, and the online store now has pricing for the new release. Being a scant 6 months since XE4 was released, with a $49 special upgrade price for XE3 Pro customers, I looked to see what special price might be on offer for XE5. $499 is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1138,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/1138\/","url_meta":{"origin":1492,"position":3},"title":"Widening of Upgrade Eligibility in XE3&#8230;?","date":"03 Sep 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Having checked the online store listing for Delphi XE3 which is now up, it appears that the upgrade eligibility window for XE3 may have been nudged open ever-so-slightly wider. The eligibility window introduced by Embarcadero has previously, consistently, been current version and the two immediately prior versions. Additionally they generously\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1264,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/1264\/","url_meta":{"origin":1492,"position":4},"title":"New Delphi Product Manager and Top Engineers Depart ?","date":"07 Nov 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently the appointment of Macro Cant\u00f9 as Delphi Product Manager has now been officially announced or at least confirmed. I cannot find any official announcement, not even on the Embarcadero web site. Anywhere. But the wires are full of people congratulating Marco on the official confirmation of his appointment and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1540,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/1540\/","url_meta":{"origin":1492,"position":5},"title":"Delphi and Oxygene &#8211; A Cost of Ownership Comparison","date":"31 Aug 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In a comment on my previous post, David Michael made some observations about the cost of Oxygene being comparable to Delphi. This surprised me, so I did some checking. The results surprised even me. DISCLAIMERS I should mention that I took advantage of an upgrade pricing offer when I purchased\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1492"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1502,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492\/revisions\/1502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}