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