{"id":694,"date":"2010-11-24T20:35:38","date_gmt":"2010-11-24T08:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/?p=694"},"modified":"2010-11-24T20:35:38","modified_gmt":"2010-11-24T08:35:38","slug":"product-activation-how-to-lose-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/694\/","title":{"rendered":"Product Activation: How To Lose Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"[Estimated Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes]<\/span><\/span>

Embarcadero clearly don’t want or need new customers. Their product activation system is not only a nuisance, but an active barrier to new customers, rendered unable even to access trial versions of their products.
\n
\nI am currently investigating PHP tools for a new project. I have already looked at Eclipse and NetBeans and whilst they have things to like they also have lots of things that I dislike. I wanted to take a look at RAD-PHP XE, so I downloaded the trial. Then I installed it, and that’s when I got the message loud and clear that No, thank you very much, Embarcadero are not interested in my custom.<\/p>\n

Kindly bu**er off and use someone elses products.<\/p>\n

What gave me this impression… let me tell you.<\/p>\n

STEP 1: REGISTER<\/h2>\n

Seriously? WTF!<\/p>\n

In fact, I may even have been required to sign up for a Developer Network account before I could even get as far as being issued with a serial number (though I may be mistaken and could have been able to login if I already had one, but not required to create an account if I didn’t).<\/p>\n

But in any event, the point is – WHY?<\/p>\n

OK, let’s just say that it’s reasonable for Embarcadero to want to capture some details about me before I even start a trial of their product.<\/p>\n

I hope they don’t intend using that information to send further unsolicited communication while I am investigating their software. That sort of pushy selling really get’s my goat and is likely to cause me to reject a company that engages in that sort of thing, regardless of the merits of their product.<\/p>\n

So I have to fill in a stupid registration form before I can start the download (why the hell can’t I do it while I’m waiting?), but at least once it’s downloaded I’ll be good to go…<\/p>\n

OH NO! This is Embarcadero we’re talking about….<\/p>\n

STEP 2: ACTIVATE<\/h2>\n

Not only do I have to register for a trial copy, I also have to ACTIVATE it. They can’t just send me a serial number with a time lock.<\/p>\n

After installing the product they force me to run an Activation Wizard before I can start trialling it.<\/p>\n

And here is where the genius of the system really comes to the fore.<\/p>\n

I duly entered the Serial Number they emailed me into the registration wizard dialog.<\/p>\n

I carefully entered my DN account name (so I presume even if not required to download the trial, a DN account is presumably a pre-requisite after all).<\/p>\n

I diligently entered my DN password.<\/p>\n

I submitted my information.<\/p>\n

And hey presto my trial finally started.<\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

Not at all.<\/p>\n

I instead got told that activation failed with some mumbo-jumbo about corrupt license blah blah blah.<\/p>\n

No worries – there appear to be two options.<\/p>\n

1 – Try web registration. I think what I have may count as “Trouble Connecting”<\/p>\n

2 – Register Later. Ah. No. This is’t an option – it’s just a bit of useless dialog bling. A button that never enables, just sits there dangling the carrot of deferred registration, an enticement that is never actually offered it would seem.<\/p>\n

So let’s try again….<\/p>\n

STEP 2: ACTIVATE – WEB STYLEEE<\/h2>\n

I really did have high hopes.<\/p>\n

But it seems that the “trial” in Embarcadero’s “trial” software is in getting to actually use the bloody stuff in the first place.<\/p>\n

Because upon visiting the page that the Web registration option takes me to, I am told that I have exceeded the activation count for that Serial Number.<\/p>\n

WTF!?<\/p>\n

I tried it once, and it failed. And that has exceeded the activation limit?<\/p>\n

IT NEVER ACTIVATED EVEN ONCE.<\/p>\n

STEP 4: UNINSTALL<\/h2>\n

STEP 5: CURSE THE DAY EMBARCADERO BECAME GUARDIANS OF THE DELPHI HERITAGE<\/h2>\n

STEP 6: WITH GRITTED TEETH RETURN TO NETBEANS<\/h2>\n

It may have some things that I find less than perfect, but at least the damned thing works.<\/p>\n

Hell, at least it let’s me BE a user!<\/p>\n

Poor show Embarcadero.<\/p>\n

Very, VERY poor show.<\/p>\n

I had heard some grumblings about Product Activation with the latest Delphi releases. It seems that the rot runs even deeper than I had feared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Estimated Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes]<\/span><\/span> Embarcadero clearly don’t want or need new customers. Their product activation system is not only a nuisance, but an active barrier to new customers, rendered unable even to access trial versions of their products.<\/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":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[4],"tags":[119,120,121],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1TKYv-bc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":653,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/653\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":0},"title":"RAD Studio “XE”","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 "Delphi"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1492,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/1492\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":1},"title":"Are Embarcadero Really Interested in New Users ?","date":"21 Aug 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In replying to a comment on his blog post about the pricing of the mobile add-on pack (XE4 - 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 \"new buyer\" type\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Delphi"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1264,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/1264\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":2},"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 "Delphi"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1365,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/1365\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":3},"title":"XE4 Pricing Revealed","date":"19 Apr 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Chris Rolliston just posted a link to a video (from Russia) where-in the pricing for XE4 is revealed. All $ amounts mentioned in this article are US $ prices. Your local price may vary depending on how much exchange rate gouging is added on top of the gouging already built\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Delphi"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1068,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/1068\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":4},"title":"Info From the World Tour (Hamburg)","date":"22 Aug 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"In the Embarcadero forums, Roland Kossow posted his report on the first of the \"RAD Studio World Tour\" events in Hamburg yesterday, reporting on what's new in XE3 and adding some more detail to the \"XE3 And Beyond\" blog post. In a nutshell we have \"FM2\" (FireMonkey 2 - no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Delphi"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":995,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/995\/","url_meta":{"origin":694,"position":5},"title":"The Problem with Embarcadero","date":"07 Aug 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently got into an email exchange with David Intersimone of Embarcadero, during which a number of questions came up. The answers I gave to those questions I think are worth sharing, as they also reflect where I think Embarcadero are going, and have been going, wrong. I cannot say\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Delphi"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694"}],"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=694"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions\/696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}