Let me try and answer some of your questions.
Tony Blomfield wrote:
> Ah Max, but in my position, would you feel so compelled to spend
> 3.5K only one year later to go from D4 to D5.?
Remember that if you are a serious developer, you should investigate
maintenance. Although the Delphi cycle is around 14 months (not 12 months)
historically, and maintenance is on a 12 month cycle, paying maintenance (and
getting any patch upgrade CDs automatically and free) is on a month by month
analysis a cheaper option, and it takes the hassle out of upgrades.
> I just dont see the pay back is there.
I can understand this - many people already have a source control mechanism that
is not PVCS or TeamSource, and getting the web stuff and the ADO stuff as extras
is fine. An initial purchase of $2400 as opposed to $5000 for stuff you don't
actually use...
> Is Corba fully implemented in D4? Or do we have to buy extra stuff to do the
> middle layer? I mean, can we do the whole Corba thing with one product now?
> or must we still use JBuilder.
The CORBA stuff was always fully implemented as it was the C++ ORB. The question
is whether it was and is fully exposed and the answer is a most certain no. But,
there is a beta program right now that I am taking part in for IDL2PAS that will
be made available free for Enterprise users.
> Is there a reliable report tool included or is it still QR.
It is still QR - some love it, some hate it.
> Will all of my components need conversion yet again? You have to put a value
> on that as well. Allow say 1K for that, and suddenly the upgrade cost is
> over 4K.
I haven't needed to convert my personal components, but I'm sure that 3rd party
vendors will be wanting a slice out of you.
> It would be nice to have a play for a month before spending that sort of
> $. The major bugs didn't show in D4 until much later when I had a project
> with 350+ forms in it. How do I know that D4 doesn't suffer from the same
> rubbish? What guarantee is there of quality this time round. These things
> need to be talked about.
Evals are still on their way apparently.
> I know there are others who feel like me, so how about a little promo effort
> from B.
I sort of believe that the problem is that over the years enough has moved into
the professional version for developers like you (Tony) to not need the
Enterprise version. Added to the fact that the price hasn't really changed for
an upgrade for some years now - the US price has stayed pretty much the same. It
is our dollar that is making it difficult for people to actually upgrade.
Again, my suggestion is two fold:
a) look at the feature matrix and decide on which version you actually need. If
you just aren't doing work in CORBA and MIDAS and you don't intend to within the
next year or so, and the other Enterprise features aren't appealing (like you
aren't working with Oracle 8 etc), then go Professional.
b) Buy maintenance.
Richard
--
Richard Vowles, Senior Systems Engineer,
Inprise New Zealand
MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
HTTP: http://www.esperanto.org.nz
[my messages contain my own opinions, not those of my employer]
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