Well OK. Here's my little history lesson!
Having cut my teeth on HPBasic (9830) and later versions of Basic in the
'70's I bought (in the mid 80's) a neat package from Informix called the
Programmers Toolbox containing SQL and 4GL at what must have been a VERY
reasonable price (MUST have been because I still had 5 kids at home!). I
wrote an application using this and deployed it at several sites around the
country earning Informix some (small) thousands of dollars in the process.
This app was running for almost 10 years (one is still going) until it was
overtaken by the windows way of doing things - meaning I had to re-write it.
I initially went back to Informix because that was what I knew, had proved
reliable, and had been priced at a developer friendly level. New Era was
the offering, still a reasonable entry price (heavily discounted for a
developer) but other things were not so good: a hefty annual
maintenance/support fee, courses offered but then cancelled though lack of
interest, an apparent focus corporate clients at the expense of individual
developers and in all the promotional material HEAVY emphasis on slick
sounding but incomprehensible acronyms. Is New Era being used by anyone
now? I don't believe that Informix has anywhere near the market share that
it had back in the eighties.
After struggling for a year I was pointed in the direction of Delphi. There
was a good introductory offer, a free book Delphi in 21 days, a course which
went ahead (a couple of days late because Richard Vowles was stuck in LA)
and a great developer network to assist. D3 Pro was upgraded to D5 Pro and
I have a full time business based on the one application, but with not much
to come and go on (even though the kids are gone!). I certainly won't be
upgrading to client/server unless I get a client site that needs what C/S
can offer AND is prepared to pay for it.
What I think I am seeing with Borland now, with most of the new "features"
going into Client/Server rather than Pro, is a similar move away from the
smaller developer towards the corporate scene - and am I imagining a
concurrent proliferation of new slick sounding acronyms?
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: "Colin Fraser" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Multiple recipients of list delphi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 2:31 PM
Subject: RE: [DUG]: OK I've heard enough
> Last time when Delphi 5 was released, I could not justify going to the
> Enterprise version... so we went with the Pro version (4 licenses) and
> purchased the ADO add-on and a few other third party tools...
>
> That has worked fine for us... so the main question is do you (or I !!)
need
> the Enterprise version or will the Pro version do. If you look at the
> product matrix, for sure all (or most) of the 'New' features are in the
> Enterprise version and not the Pro.
>
> Now I don't yet know what all these 'New' things really are... maybe they
> are definitely needed by the greater majority (in which case they
shouldn't
> be in the 'Enterprise' version), maybe they can be purchased separately,
> maybe there are cheaper and better third party add-ons that can be used
with
> the Pro version that will do the same thing (but cheaper)... lots of
> maybes...
>
> And a final maybe... maybe we just need to wait for a couple of weeks and
> see how things settle down, see if more info becomes available as to what
> really is 'New' and what really is in the Enterprise version and available
> in no other way...
>
> I am sure hoping that we don't need to purchase the Enterprise version...
> that is one thing I can say!
>
> Also, an interesting side note to do with market share or future market
> share... Down here in little old Hamilton, a friend of mine was keen to
go
> to a Delphi course at Tech... the course ended up been cancelled due to
not
> enough interest/registrations, so they decided to do a Java course
> instead... that course ended up been jam-packed... It doesn't seem like a
> good sign if there are hardly any people wanting to learn Delphi, and
those
> that do, can't (well... not at a Tech course in Hamilton anyway...)
>
> Regards
>
> Colin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> Behalf Of Steve Peacocke
> Sent: Thursday, 10 May 2001 9:38 pm
> To: Multiple recipients of list delphi
> Subject: RE: [DUG]: OK I've heard enough
>
>
> At 09:00 am 10.05.01 +1200, you wrote:
> >At NZ$5500 pa the MSDN Universal subscription seems to represent
> >comparitively remarkable value for money.
> >
> >It includes 5 user licenses of the Enterprise versions of all the MS
> >development tools (?), all the Windows platforms, the MSDN library,
Office,
> >Backoffice (including all editions of SQL Server). The international
> >edition includes foreign language versions of these where applicable, and
> >update CDs arrive on monthly as new versions become available.
>
> It's interesting isn't it. Delphi is considered in corporates as a weird
> language - excellent by all reports, but weird. Often too weird to
consider
> unless there is a contract Pro around to do some selling.
>
> How many times have I heard IT managers and IS Directors stating that they
> can deliver real state of the art, object oriented, multi-tier, corporate
> critical applications with a "real Language" like Microsoft Access or
> Microsoft Visual Basic. I have seen entire in-house development structures
> for corporates based on Microsoft Access - Hell, I've been to a few
> Microsoft mornings where they talk new buzzwords sprinkled with the words
> "VB" or "Access" and all the corporate people go away glassy eyed.
>
> If Borland doesn't want my business, I'm certain Microsoft does.
>
> Reality: I'm dreading going back to see a particular client in the morning
> who I convinced to purchase Delphi 5 for their junior programmer I'm
> training up. Convincing the guy to part with many thousands to get into
> Delphi 5 was like pulling teeth, I was there when he heard the price and
he
> took a lot of convincing.
>
> If he has heard about the $5.5K to upgrade - something he will want to do
> as his junior and I support a lot of his web developed apps and Delphi 6
> gives a large enhancement to that - If he's heard about the upgrade
prices,
> my name in this town is going to be something not worth repeating.
>
> Either Borland has to do something and double quick, or it looses NZ
> developers in droves. Most will probably be like myself and will still
> carry on for a few years with their older versions on current
developments,
> but any new work will be done with some other tool.
>
> I have already begun the search for that tool - probably Microsoft owned.
>
> BTW: This discussion used to be read by Borland Aus. and topical issues
> like this one were reported back to the States. Is this still the case?
> otherwise, it's about time one of us sent all these emails to Borland USA.
>
> Steve
>
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