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 what the questions themselves were as these would be covered by the confidentiality clause in the boiler-plate footer of the relevant emails from David I, but if you know how to play “Jeopardy” then figuring out the questions I was asked should be fairly easy from the answers I gave. 😉
Yes, Violating an NDA is Bad
I do think that if someone has willingly signed an NDA then they should not break the confidentiality that they agreed to maintain with respect to that NDA.
However, I also think that NDA’s themselves are drawn in shades of grey (50? More? Less? :)). How restrictive an NDA is something that is entirely under the control of the party presenting the NDA itself. Clearly there are differences in the way that different organisations approach their NDA’s, both in terms of what is covered but also perhaps in how they choose to enforce any transgressions.
I Think I Already Asked For That
Being a Delphi customer on SA (“Software Assurance”) I am entitled to expect to receive the next release of Delphi, assuming it is released while my subscription is current (should Embarcadero fail to deliver a release in this time frame then I shall have to consider my options).
As such I consider I have already paid for this next release. And as a consequence of that, I consider it implicit in my SA subscription that I wish to be kept informed about that release.
I should not have to ask for that information. Or rather, if Embarcadero think I should ask, then I refer them to my SA payment as suggestive that I already asked.
A Secret That Everyone Knows
It has since been offered – publicly, so I am not violating any confidence by revealing this – that anyone that wants advance information about Delphi can ask for it and get it … under an NDA.
Seemingly Embarcadero are not willing to volunteer this information (when was the last time the Delphi “roadmap” was updated?) but if anyone wants this information then they can get it simply by asking, as long as they then promise to keep that information to themselves.
Let’s keep it a secret, even if it’s a secret that everyone (potentially) knows.
This strikes me as frankly ridiculous.
Pre-Internet Thinking
Yes, some of the behaviours that I criticise are of course those of Embarcadero. In particular I think that issuing “take down” requests to remove comments that contain – in part – some sensitive information is both misguided and counter-productive.
A comment was posted to my blog that I regarded with some skepticism, reserving some doubt in my mind as to the authenticity and credibility of the claims it contained, doubts which I anticipated that readers of my blog would share. Having been told that this comment violated confidentiality agreements does nothing but serve to remove any such doubts.
But of course in this day and age, by the time the comment itself is removed not only has it already been read by many people, but some of those have reproduced the content in whole, in part, verbatim or paraphrased, elsewhere on the internet.
As I anticipated, many of those people themselves harboured – and some even expressed – doubts as to it’s credibility. But, lo and behold, the sensitivity of the information is revealed in the action and the attempt to suppress it! (an exercise in futility somewhat akin to a game of Whack-a-Mole)
I am Not Just Picking on Embarcadero
In pointing this out, I am not singling out Embarcadero, although obviously and unavoidably given that this specific incident involved Embarcadero then of course the discussion of it revolves around them. But the point of principle involved applies equally to anyone and everyone that regards their customers as some sort of threat from whom information must be withheld unless and until absolutely necessary.
Who else thinks this way ?
What if we look at some other companies, perhaps some that might have been suggested I look at as comparable to Embarcadero…
Microsoft
I am not a Microsoft customer. I have, at various times, downloaded and installed the “Express” line of FREE products for software developers that they make available (oh dear, already the comparison with Embarcadero is less than favourable). In the past I was an MSDN subscriber, but my subscription expired many, many years ago.
So how is it that some months ago I became aware of some controversy surrounding the changes that Microsoft were making to their still yet to be released version of Visual Studio ?
I was not, and am not, a customer of Microsoft, yet somehow I was aware not only of what changes were coming, but how other people felt about it…. I wasn’t the only one privy to this information – it was being openly discussed and commented upon!
There must have been teams of lawyers herding hordes of people through the courts for violation of their NDA’s.
Or maybe not.
In fact, far from suppressing the information and the discussions it engendered, it seems that Microsoft took some (at least) of the criticism on board and actually took steps to respond to the criticisms directed at their future product, and took the opportunity to produce something less abhorrent to their customers.
Just exactly what they are about to offer I – and anyone else – can find out, not only by reading about it but by downloading a Release Candidate of the product itself.
I fail to see how this makes Embarcadero look better by comparison.
Can anyone help me out here ?
Apple
Disclosure: I am an Apple customer.
Not only did I buy one of their computers, I also signed up for their developer program. This is a subscription based program with an annual cost of US $99.
This is on top of the cost of the purchase of the development tool chain itself of course which is an additional…. oh, my mistake. That’s included in the $99 subscription (again, already things aren’t looking particularly rosy as far as comparisons with Embarcadero go).
So, having signed up for the developer program, I gain access to the latest development tools and SDKs. In the past year I have also received regular and frequent communications from Apple, keeping me informed about future updates and forthcoming changes, even going so far as to make available beta and preview releases of updates to tools and SDKs.
I didn’t have to ask for this.
I didn’t have to apply to be accepted to top-secret beta program or commit to providing any sort of level of feedback or contribution to qualify for membership. They just send me this stuff presumably because they think that it’s the sort of information a developer would be interested in.
This insight is so cutting edge that I guess it eludes the management at Embarcadero. No wonder it takes a company like Apple to see this sort of thing. They really are geniuses.
Yes, all of it is “confidential”, which I am reminded of with every email I get, but since I know that this information is volunteered to ALL other Apple Developer Program members, then (discrete) discussion about and requests for assistance with the new stuff is not a problem.
It just means I can’t tell my fiancée about the great stuff she will be getting on her iPhone/iPad until Apple lift the lid on it to the general public themselves. 🙂
Again, can someone point out to me where Embarcadero comes out better by comparison ?
Embarcadero
OK, so let’s look at the situation with Embarcadero:
By a very large margin, theirs are far and away the most expensive tools out of the three companies in this comparison.
The only communications I have received from Embarcadero in the past 12 months – aside from take-down requests – have been spam emails, inviting me to purchase products I have no interest in or to upgrade to products that in some cases I already own!
“Last chance to upgrade to Delphi XE2″… thanks guys, but I got mine some time ago. I figure you might already know this .. ?
This does not inspire confidence.
On top of this, of the three companies – Microsoft, Apple and Embarcadero – Embarcadero are the least forthcoming in terms of keeping their customers informed with respect to not only progress toward achieving their plans but what their plans even are in the first place!
The “Delphi Roadmap” has always been so difficult to find that it often felt like a huge achievement when you finally managed to find it. A sense of achievement somewhat tempered by the fact that you could never really be sure if what you were looking at was the real thing (and that what it contained and the way it was presented … um, left a lot to be desired).
It always seemed so out of date and hardly ever bore any relation to what actually seemed to be delivered (in retrospect), leading to this uneasy sense that it frankly wasn’t worth the effort (perhaps this was the idea… to make people give up on the idea of even wanting a roadmap).
In the days of Borland the #1 excuse trotted out for not providing this forward looking information was SOX. Strangely SOX never seemed to present such an insurmountable obstacle to other companies even then, and these days Embarcadero do not have this excuse.
Terms of Engagement
Embarcadero need to wake up and smell the internet.
They need to realise that their customers are not the enemy, with whom engagement is best achieved by carefully selecting a battlefield, covertly establishing fortified positions from which to spring a surprise spin-attack on the market and hoping to finance their next campaign from the spoils that they manage to scoop up before scurrying back in to their bunkers.
David Intersimone referred someone to a list of 10 rules for innovators, strongly suggesting that these were considered relevant to/by Embarcadero.
It is frankly worrying that this is considered some sort of standard that Embarcadero aspires to or applies to itself, containing as it does such gems as:
- #2 Don’t worry, be crappy
- #7 Eat like a bird, poop like an elephant
And some they seem to be taking very literally indeed, without actually understanding the message or – indeed – what an evangelist actually is:
If I have learned anything from 20+ years in software development, it is that the single biggest driver of success is not “being crappy” and “pooping like an elephant”, but Expectation Management.
Clearly Embarcadero have some lessons to learn.
I for one hope for the sake of Delphi, that they realise this. And soon.
Yes. I can understand your problem, you know some information about upcoming releases and like to share it with someone like myself.
But You don’t have freedom to express yourself.
No, unfortunately I have NO information about the upcoming release at all, other than what was mentioned or hinted at in the invitation to the “World Tour” event scheduled for later this month.
This despite having paid handsomely for the “privilege” of being a customer.
Well done, I love reading your stuff. I have a comment … “Being a Delphi customer on SA” mean sweet bugger all more than if a new version should happen to fall out the door while you’re SA is valid – you’re good, they’ve got your money. Absolutely nothing else, implied, assumed or otherwise dreamed of is included. Again, excellent read, thanx.
Thanks Dave. I have to say that I am eyeing the renewal date of my SA with some concern. This time last year the “World Tour” for XE2 was already underway with the release then occuring about a month later.
With the “World Tour” not starting until almost the end of this month, if it precedes the actual launch by the same window then my SA will have lapsed by the time XE3 is released.
If I am denied an upgrade on that basis I shall consider this a “breach of promise” on the part of Embarcadero, irrespective of whatever legally binding terms they may quote at me from the SA agreement.
In NZ, as a consumer I am protected by the Consumer Guarantees Act – I can only hope that I shall not have to research what recourse this may give me in this eventuality.
A “single” SA never ensured you get the next version – you get it only if it is released while you have a valid SA running – but nothing in SA says they have to release it within a single SA cycle, so if you don’t get it you have to renew the SA anyway (and that’s why is usually better not to start an SA too close to a new release).
Anyway this SA silliness is what makes Emb feel almost obliged to release something yearly – to keep the SA money running in – even if they have little to release and/or an unfinished product. If that was a “maintenance” contract for the *actual* release, and not a just a “discount” on a *future* one, it would make more sense – if the next release is late and they keep on maintaining (at least fixing bugs) the actual one for most *professional* developers would be better – IMHO. But “maintenance” implies “customer care”. While “SA” implies “pay me now for a version you may need or not, and the quality of which may be wildly variable”.
Indeed, but see my response to Bruce. In NZ there is the Consumer Guarantees Act which hinges on “reasonable expectations” and “fitness for purpose”.
w.r.t to the terms in an SA, this is similar to a manufacturer’s statement limiting their liability w.r.t an appliance they manufactured to defects in manufacture for 12 months from purchase. Regardless of these specific terms of sale, the Consumer Guarantees Act requires that goods (and services) be “fit for purpose” and “reasonably robust”. Again, see my reply to Bruce for what this means w.r.t goods and how I believe it may apply to SA.
Sorry, but this way your one of those who are forcing Emb to release some crappy code very year or they get complains and threats of being brought to court.
The wrong part in SA is the SA itself because it gives the wrong expectation to its buyers – to get a new release within its validity, while it works the other way, you get the new version when it is released only if you have a still valid SA.
But it’s clear that a product of the size of Delphi can no longer sustain a one year release cycle, it would need a longer one to deliver a finished, usable product.
I stopped buying the SA exactly for this reason. I can wait for a new (and finished) release, and as I said over and over I’m ready to pay for maintenance meanwhile, if they need a steady cash flow to pay for development because they can’t invest too much. What I don’t really need is a rushed out release because I already paid for it.
This really does not make any sense at all. I am not putting Embarcadero under any pressure to release every year, but they are selling a product (SA) which makes that (implied) promise. Neither was I putting Embarcadero, or the previous owners of Delphi, under any pressure to encourage them to adopt the SA model. The pressure was in fact in entirely the other direction.
Equally, the quality of the code they choose to release is entirely down to them. If anything, the argument should be – and I think was – that by having a reliable revenue stream from SA, adequate development resource can be confidently deployed to ensuring that quality and innovation, rather than having to take a gamble, risking spending a lot on development that you may not see returned in upgrade fees.
And I simply have no idea what you mean by the suggestion that the product is too big to “sustain a one year release cycle”. The problem isn’t the size of the product, it’s the love affair with and reluctance to let go of the “New Version and Upgrades” licensing model. It is this model that results in updates (i.e. primarily bug fixes) suddenly drying up as the release window for the next new version approaches, with bug fixes being held back for the next designated “new version” together with whatever hurriedly cobbled together rag-tag collection of “just about ready” new features is required to justify designating it a new version.
Finally, nobody is threatening “court action”. The Disputes Tribunal that officates over Consumer Guarantees disputes is not a court. Hearings are informal and are presided over by a lay “referee”, specifically NOT a judge. Furthermore lawyers are specifically PROHIBITED from the process (unless they are one of the parties involved, in which case they appear as such, and are not allowed to act in any “lawyerly” fashion).
And as I *keep* saying, I hope it won’t come to it.
and how would you make a license of intellectual property “a sale” ? any suggestion how to go after Emb Inc in NZ? Do they have an affiliate in NZ? Or would you go after a distributor? Wouldn’t a judge in NZ seeing your blog consider yourselves way too intelligent and knowledgeable, and hence, giving a way the protection your NZ law gives you, the transaction a deliberate give and take where you as an individual agreed to pay a (high) price for an event which never was guaranteed to happen?
SA is not a license for IP, it’s a service contract.
Yes it was deliberate “give and take”, but there are only 3 reasons for them to not deliver a new version within 12 months:
1) They never intended to, in which case they sold me a 12 month SA contract knowing that it was not going to provide me with the service I expected.
2) They had hoped and intended to but through failures of QA or their own abilities to meet deadlines they failed to do so. That is not my fault and I am entitled to redress in exactly the same way as someone who buys a washing machine expecting it to last for 5-10 years but which conks out after just 3.
3) They had hoped and intended to but some external factor beyond their control prevented them from doing so.
As for who to “go after”, the Consumer Guarantees Act makes the supplier of that service responsible, regardless of where they may be located. The question isn’t whether anything was ever guaranteed but what a “reasonable expectation” was. Given that the vast majority of releases of Delphi historically have occurred on or within a 12 month time-frame and that the FAQ for Support and Maintenance states that you get a “year of upgrades”, so a year with no upgrades is unexpected. Similarly why should someone purchasing an XE2 license + SA just a few days after the release be disadvantaged w.r.t someone else who made their purchase even (potentially) just 1 or 2 days later ?
If I did not reasonably expect the upgrade to XE3 to be included I would not have purchased SA – it really is as simple as that. Ultimately what you or I think doesn’t really matter – if it comes to it an impartial, independent referee will make the call.
But that’s the end of the discussion on that matter. NZ has Consumer Guarantees – not many other places have such strong consumer protection legislation and I have to say that most of the “anti” commentary in this respect seems to come from a place of envy more than anything else. 😉
That’s just silly. Do you really not understand the terms of their subscription model?
It follows their own stated terms and conditions, not what you think they should be.
In most countries courts will set aside contract provisions that are deemed unreasonable and unfair.
In NZ in particular we have especially strong consumer protection in this area, in the form of the Consumer Guarantees Act. In the case of “goods”, this act requires that goods be fit for purpose and reasonably robust. This means that if the power supply in your monitor fails after 4 years then you are entitled to a repair or a replacement at the manufacturer’s expense, since a monitor is reasonably expected to last far more than 4 years.
This is not an invented/speculated scenario – I know personally of someone here in NZ who very recently had a 30″ monitor replaced, at no cost, by the manufacturer after 4 years. It was not under warranty and the specific wording in the terms of the manufacturer limited their liability to manufacturing defects in the first 12 months only.
But regardless of what specific wording a manufacturer/supplier puts in their terms, in NZ you cannot write yourself out of your obligations under the Consumer Guarantees Act.
Note: My purchase was for personal use – not in connection with any business, so was a consumer sale, not a commercial one.
With SA it would be an interested case because it’s not entirely clear to me yet whether SA constitutes “goods” or “services”. It doesn’t really matter because in either case, protection applies. In the case of a service, another factor is that the service provided is what the consumer reasonably expected when they contracted the service. “Reasonable”ness is a key test in this legislation, and is not defined with respect to any specific legal meaning – it means what the dictionary says… what a “reasonable person” would expect, not an “average” or “typical” person.
If SA is treated as a service, then it is simple enough: I expected to receive an upgrade to the next release of Delphi since this is specifically and explicitly a provision of the service that I purchased and I reasonably expected that next release to fall within the period covered by the SA – otherwise I would not have purchased it since it was the sole purpose of contracting that service. I had no intention, never had nor anticipated any need for the support incidents in the Software Assurance agreement.
Should it come to it, and if XE3 is released a matter of a few days or weeks after my SA contract expires, having been purchased specifically to secure that upgrade, then it will be a decision of a Disputes Tribunal as to whether or not my expectation was reasonable (for which I believe I can make a strong case, pointing to the periodicity of Delphi releases – in the past 5 years only 1 release has been > 12 months after the previous) and whether any delay was beyond the suppliers control.
And if it comes to it, it will only cost me $40 to take the case to such a tribunal (lawyers are not permitted in such tribunals – each side represents themselves and makes their own case).
If nothing else it would make an interesting case. 🙂
I would be very surprised if any impartial tribunal (?) ruled that someone has to deliver something to you after your subscription has expired because you think it was implicit in the agreement even though the contrary is explicitly stated.
Please let me know if you follow choose to test this and how you make out.
In fact, if they do, I’ll pay the $40.
The tribunal may not rule that I would be entitled to an upgrade after the expiry date, but they could rule that the price I paid for the SA contract was too high since I did not derive the value from it that someone would reasonably expect to obtain when entering into the agreement.
For example. 🙂
But hopefully it won’t even come to that.
Just in case you were still left wondering how on earth this could be the case, here’s the specific authority from the relevant Disputes Tribunal here in NZ:
Reproduced, with emphasis added by me, from this document.
I think the strength of the legislation and it’s clear tendency toward justice rather than law is what catches people by surprise.
🙂
for 4 releases in a row (and soon with XE3) – we have delivered new releases each year with new functionality. Doing the math SA math versus upgrading should show that SA customers in recent years (from CodeGear on) have received the full benefits of their investment.
David, you simply do not know the math for a particular customer.
For Pro customers SA makes sense only if you take – and can make use of – every upgrade. You cannot sit there and say with confidence, let alone certainty, that EVERY release is of use to every Pro customer. Indeed, many will tell you that the cost and the pain of upgrading not only the compiler but all of the attendant 3rd party components they use in their projects – every year – is usually not worth the expense let alone the disruption.
Otherwise, skipping alternate versions and taking only every other upgrade is cheaper than staying on SA.
2 years SA : $540 (2 x $270 p.a)
Upgrade Pro every other year : $499
Now yes, SA also includes “3 Support Incidents” which to me personally is worthless – I never have needed nor ever envisage ever needing to use a support incident. But I cannot get an “Upgrade Only” SA agreement, I HAVE to buy something I don’t need in order to get the thing I want. And then I have to hope (because as we have been over repeatedly, we certainly aren’t kept sufficiently or reasonably informed) that EVERY release will be of use to me to make SA worthwhile.
Every time we buy new version of Delphi we feel ripped off. But we buy it (we bought D7, D2005, D2010 and DXE2) because there are too many lines of code that would have to be rewritten in some other tool. How long we will keep on buying it – I don’t know. It is frustrating expirience.
I’d say that you’re p***ed since they haven’t made you a Delphi Evangelist, ha!! ((:
Kidding aside, they are not focused on the customer(no matter what they say), sadly, they need to hit rock bottom before they realize that the current way, may not the best.
At this point, Delphi is a great tool to build fast native applications for Windows(yeah, IMHO just Windows), however, the huge pricing and the “customer is my enemy attitude” must change ASAP.
I’m pretty sure that most customers feel raped(w/o lube) with each new release that only brings a few features and more issues on top of existing ones.
Just a heads-up Embarcadero, Freepascal and Lazarus is getting better and better with each new release, how long until open source will be a much better option that buying your product(s)? that’s a kazillion dollar question.
Someone needs to take the lead and start cleaning, the faster the better.
P.S. just saw the “In Delphi XE3 I am hoping for…” poll, where’s the option to vote for a stable and fast IDE, I won’t bring the “less buggy” subject into discussion…
To be p***ed at not being “invited to be an ‘Evangelist'” I’d first have to know what being an ‘Evangelist’ entails.
This seems to be another Big Secret, but from what I have heard – unofficially – I am actually relieved not to have been asked. It means I can continue being an actual evangelist. 🙂
Not being an officially sanctioned evangelist certainly leaves more freedom in terms of what you can or cannot say.
Somehow I doubt you would be willing to sacrifice that freedom for free tools you may or may not end up using 😉
Indeed Eric, and it may even be that it is for that reason that I was not invited – they knew they would be wasting their time. 😉
I hope that someone in Embarcadero see’s the value that a critical friend has.
When a “Community Evangelist” praises the product you know they are legally obliged to do so. Should I find reason to praise the product – and I sincerely hope that will be able to – that praise will carry far greater weight for it having being genuinely earned, rather than contractually required. 🙂
The price is not the problem for me, since some 3rd party components are more expencive. And I only upgrade, when I need a special feature. What’s frustrating me is the poor quality, every new feature cannot be used in production code, and some important bugs are not going to be fixed. E.g. QC#88935 That issue changed the behaviour from older versions. So I had to made modifications by my own in that sourc code file (luckely I could).
I bought D2009, because of its new cool features, but had to upgrade to XE, because D2009 was not usable. The IDE was so instable (crashed once a day) and the features didn’t work in most scenarious. That means I had to pay the double price for the tool I wanted.
I also tried to convince my friends to use Delphi, since it has many advantages over other tools. But in the meantime, I ask my self, if Delphi is future proof and if they still have the right people to develop revolutionaly features as in the past. Currently, I have the feeling, most features are just working, but they don’t leverage the developer itself anymore.
To survive, EMB must be better then the others. Otherwise they have no chance on the market.
These to statements extremly worry me:
#2 Don’t worry, be crappy
#7 Eat like a bird, poop like an elephant
=> now, I understand the poor quality. Create cool names e.g. “LiveBindings”, “Firemonkey” … sell them and don’t worry what is inside. If people cry loud enough, they may be change it.
@markus
“But in the meantime, I ask my self, if Delphi is future proof and if they still have the right people to develop revolutionaly features as in the past.
Rest assured that Delphi is future proof, even if Embarcadero won’t be the company behind it, I’m hoping for a long time that Microsoft will buy Delphi and raise it’s quality, hopefully my dream will come true one day (:
Of course it is future proof. You don’t have to worry about this. I think DavidI was focusing on getting things out of the door early. It is no secret that it takes at least one or 2 years until new things work. This was never different. Imo getting things out of the door early is no longer this important, it should work when it is shipped. No one demands this. Simply self-flagellation.
@markus
“But in the meantime, I ask my self, if Delphi is future proof and if they still have the right people to develop revolutionaly features as in the past.”
Personally I don’t think it is future proof. Recent updates of all new Antivirus software seem to detect virus in EXE compiled using D7 as well as D2007.
Why is this happening I cannot say and our customers are screaming their heads off because of this problem. And finally it is not practical to tell 3000+ customers to exclude our software from virus scanning! And some of our customers are not ready to do this also!
You are certainly spreading FUD here. I had myself a few false positives with some antivirus, but it is NOT every Delphi compiled EXE that is detected as being infected, and only a few antivirus do it (Avira is one of them). You can check that submitting your compiled APP to http://www.virustotal.com.
And more: WHEN it happens, the only thing I do is submit my app to the antivirus vendor, and a few days later their engine or signature files are updated, so they won’t give a false positive to that kind of signature anymore.
We bought D1-D7 and we where happy and excited. Then we bought D2005 – we where shocked. Since that time we are waiting for a working copy of Delphi that is worth the money….Thank god, we didn’t touch SA.
A lot of these communication problems were there in the late Borland I and Inprise days, they did not abate in Borland II, and the CodeGear spring was rather short lived.
All the public faces and communicators have been pretty much pushed out over those years, some more spectacularly than others (Nick Hodges comes to mind), leaving only what (from the outside) seems to be a mix of customer-is-my-enemy seniors and juniors that are too junior to threaten the senior establishment.
People leaving is a normal aspect of every company, what’s rather striking is that these people haven’t been replaced. In a day and age where most IT communicate *more*, Embarcadero now communicates *less* than Borland I did, less than Inprise, etc.
I have to agree with all of you said.
Take a look on the Embarcadero management level, the only change since Borland was the CEO, if you look the R&D and product executives, they are all the same, they all came from Borland.
The CEO would be the only person to make the change, but He is bad as the others are. Embarcadero has been offshoring a large portion of the Delphi development, everybody knows that and we know the result.
Remember, they lay-off all the VCL senior engineers, right after XE2 release. My question is, who remain in Scotts Valley? Look other famous and respectable Delphi guys from Embarcadero that are not longer there.
The last Delphi release I bought was XE, my company is no longer starting new projects with Delphi, we are just using for maintenance.
The Embarcadero action lead us to not trust on them, unfortunately this is reality.
Once they wanted to be the Switzerland of dev tools (but now I think they were talking more about bank secrecy and gathering money than about neutrality), but they ended up being the North Korea, announcing every year a new Great Weapon – developed in great secrecy – that usually fails as soon as it is launched… and you have to guess what they’re going to do looking at changes in the chain of command and small hints here and there.
Especially because they are a dev tools company only, and their product need to be expensive because can’t be subsidized by expensive software of devices they should care a lot more about their developers niche. Instead they adopted the opposite behavior, probably hoping they have enough customers locked in the Pascal/VCL world.
This new “evangelism” is pretty ridiculous too – what we need is less promises of a future heaven in exchange for actual troubles – we need facts – in exchange for our money. Frankly I do not understand why developers were laid off, while dev rel people who are clearly unable to perform their job and just enrage customers are still there.
Again, I advice to look at the “Microsoft Flight” debacle. Its manager, Joshua Howard, made its best alienate both the paying customers and third party developers, didn’t listen to complains made in the private beta, and the result was a project killed in less than five months. That’s the case to study, not the usually silly “ten rules” good for a Dilbert story.
Great Post.
In agreement with just about everything.
In a previous post David I commented
“We are always watching and listening.”
This may be true, but EMBT are certainly NOT informing & engaging their customers. Which is a very bad omen for Delphi.
They are not prepared to give vital information on upcoming technology, unless you sign an NDA. This is 20 year old business logic. They need to look at how their competitors communicate & inform their customers to see just how out of touch they are.
Confidence in publicly released information is MUCH higher than information released under NDA. Conversley predictions made under NDA are easily swept under the carpet.
I have been using the Visual Studio 2012 beta for months now, totally free. I didn’t even have to give them even an email adress to use it . You have to fill out a form giving your name,email,address & telephone number to even get a bloody white paper from EMBT. And then get spammed with offers to buy products you have owned & registered with them for years.
I have a great fondness for Delphi, I have used it since version 1.
However, due to EMBT’s attitude towards Delphi, my confidence in it as a viable long term development environment is so low, that i will not be using it for new projects.
All good things must come to an an end. (Sigh!)
Yes! I say – Peter Drucker’s quotes come to mind:
“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”
and
“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”
EMB is a company without soul and imagination – both of which could be remedied by thinking about their customers for a change. The awful website and forum (no search) is a glaring testament to this IMO.
Jon
An example to EMBT as to how far out of step they are.
The “.Net Development and Tools Blog” has a post yesterday (6th Aug) about future updates to VS2012.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2012/08/06/plans-regarding-website-projects-and-web-deployment-projects.aspx
“We are currently in the process for planning our first update for VS 2012 and we wanted to share some of the items that we are planning to work on. We would like to get your feedback on these ideas to ensure that we are doing the right things. If you have comments please do let us know”
Note VS2012 has not even been released yet, and they are informing and engaging with their customers about future updates.
EMBT, wake up and smell the coffee.
David I!
LET’S watch and listen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Two different approaches to business: mitsrosoft and embarcadero:
1) beta for all and free!
2) the beta for a selected people and for 47 days!
And then gotted product is a full of bugs and broken promises, late for a few years, with the disparate money!
You are afraid of someone?
Yours users?
Want to earn lastly?
You can see the end of Delphi?
I can see – because of you and your approach to business!!!!!
Embarcadero promised to publish FMX updates every month, but where they are? Shall we receive Update 5 and more for XE2? I guess I should wait for another deal to upgrade. Yep, never ending engineering progress of never finished products.
I voted for LiveBinding feature among others when the poll was proposed and I hope it will be useful as a general evaluating engine deeply integrated into RTTI.
I can’t consider abovementioned secrecy, pooping and crapping from Embarcadero as a good behavior towards to customers. Embarcadero is constantly trying to conquer every new possibility leaving old customers in a void. Well, RadPHP, HTML5 Builder, does or will anybody use it? Why not concentrate on two main products as Delphi and C++ Builder?
Dear Embarcadero, please bring back the spirit of Philippe Kahn’s entrepreneurship and innovation http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philippe_Kahn Please, cut the marketing costs, not your engineers salaries, don’t alienate your customers with high prices and secrecy and don’t forget the RFR #5 Make evangelists, not sales!
IL
Totally agree (RadPHP is a disgrace and a badly squandered opportunity) –
except this:
“Please, cut the marketing costs, not your engineers salaries, …”
Not the right way IMHO, it needs to get better at marketing to HUMANS, not pour over increasing its own bottom line in an darkened, candle-lit, Ivory Tower. Then it has better resources to improve its hiring of excellent people to push the product forward. But then again, look at what they did to support Nick Hodges efforts – that’s where their heart *should* be.
Jon
Umm, yes, I said ambiguos thing about marketing. By that I mean those deals and BOGO offers which EMB uses quite often. That practice should be cancelled because huge discount is unfair to customers who may miss the opportunity. Yep, MS offers deals also but not at a such degree, variation and frequency as EMB. It is similar to groupon tactics.
I believe, promoting Delphi and C++ Builder is one of their primary goals, organizing and participating events is the other. Certainly, Ivory tower is a way to nowhere 🙂
EMB forum look is like it can’t move beyond Y2K.
“… By that I mean those deals and BOGO offers which EMB uses quite often”
Yes IL, that is particularly lazy and irksome. I appreciate the offers, but having nothing useful to say in an email which recurs over and over again is simply annoying and unprofessional.
Jon
The promos are ok. EMB is aware that not all people in the world can afford Delphi at the same price. In general Delphi in fall is for those who already need a certain feature early, accepting that changes will have to be provided. The others will follow later. D2010 and XE have proven that this path does work in general.
Everyone can sit with the beloved Delphi and hope that the IT world will return refined and confess that all the evolutions of the last decade have been wrong … this will not happen. So RAD Studio is an alternative in summary.
Have a look at this picture – https://www.deltics.co.nz/blog/?p=950
What does this picture suggest. Support for MS Surface technology and of course Win8 Metro support – in the end Win8 on mobile devices call them tables. Now we can say, ok, maybe this picture and the product page very likely following this ‘picture’ are built for next year too … but it does give a false impression to those who just see it from the Delphi only perspective. In the end it is about the RAD Studio. This is imo a source for misunderstandings and disappointment in general. This kind of creating expectations …
Delphi for IOs is a solution to no problem at the moment. This can change the more complex the applications on tables will become. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with this approach – idea. Same story is Android.
Good examples have been provided by Anders Ohlsson …
http://blogs.embarcadero.com/ao/ … look at the backgammon game, not bad. He simply shows the strengths and simplicity – better than a roadmap.
VCL will not be here forever … honestly the refurbishing did help. Now it is in a state where one can say. With a little clue, with theming too…
Maybe my impression only – maybe the ‘Borland’ guys still think that shipping everything yesterday is still an appropriate strategy. The old Microsoft game, announce ship one day maybe … is not accepted anymore. EMB does not need to block people from using something else, the alternatives are free anyway. So why. It’s simply the consistent overall offering of the RadStudio… and it cannot work a different way, if someone does want to have the solution from one address.
>EMB forum look is like it can’t move beyond Y2K.
Not only the forum, not only the forum…
Just because it looks like The-UI-formerly-known-as-Metro doesn’t necessarily mean that it is “Metro”, or even Windows 8.
Using FireMonkey you can create a Win32 app that looks like an iOS app. If you want to. For example.
PS.
Actually, two brands in particular illustrate what happens when companies gouge their own eyes out and cut off their ears –
Nokia and RIM –
It’s inevitable that decline follows these self inflicted wounds. It can often be fatal.
Jon
We gave up on Embarcadero and Delphi at D2010. Their Pricing schemes and poor customership was more than we could take. We actually still program our legacy stuff in Delphi 7 and our new current stuff in Delphi 2010. All new stuff is Java, HTML5 and JavaScript. Embarcadero left a very bad taste in our mouth. Its a shame, cause we use to license multiple copies of Delphi and each of our clients would purchase multiple licenses of Interbase.
We have moved on. Embarcadero is on a slow downward spiral
I finally had to unsubscribe to newsletters from Embarcadero.
Too much SPAM (“last chance”, “second last chance”, “this is really the last chances, so don’t miss it”, “2 days left for your last chance”) I guess some people define it as “marketing”: I consider it as SPAM. Problem is that without real informative news about Delphi, we will still using D2010 (and as the thing goes, will be for long time!)
Even if I’m a developer hiring Delphi language to all who wants to hear, I never had respectable support even after many communications (and too many hours spent) with mrozlog and former nhodges. Simple, I was focusing on one single bug: code’s navigation (clearly defined, including steps to reproduce, snapshots, videos and even source code!).
Problem was never fixed, “a machine’s configuration problem” they told me (sorry for speaking french). Hummm thanks, but how to solve it? “Well, don’t know… upgrade your version?” Doing so from D2007 to D2010 without result…
It seems Embarcadero is working only to get new customers, instead of keeping their actual customers happy. This was my two cents.
@Ben and others what tools are your company using for new projects to replace delphi?
A good read. I do have agree with you to an extent.
I have to say that EMB is still giving quite a lot of freedom.
Have you ever used PoweBASIC or tied to post any kind of limitations of PowerBASIC on their forums? If you have you will know that you cannot criticize the product in any way or Bob will ban you from posting. At least EMB is not doing that!
How “Bob” run’s his business is, well, his business. And to an extent how Embarcadero run theirs is their business. But they seem to think they are better in the customer relations and developer communication stakes than Microsoft, Apple and Google. If “Bob” were making such claims I would be taking issue with him too. But I have no dog in that fight and I am sure Bob has no such delusions.
As for draconian moderation of forums, I am sure you are aware that there have unfortunately been a number of instances over the years when Borcaderoprise have banned people and deleted posts from their forums and tried to make “non-persons” of them.
All of the companies that you compare Emb to derive their money from products the tool chains provide, not the tool chains themselves. Apples and oranges. Compare Emb to ComponentOne, DevExpress, Telerik and suddenly their prices are not so outrageous.
But, they are selling an ecosphere as opposed to just another addon for VS2010 and need to see the ecosphere compete with the other ecosphere’s in order to succeed.
I have attended probably 15 of their webinars over the past year. While David I can begin to grate over that many webinars, I do not know how he could have tried harder to institute FireMonkey fundamentals, especially since it is admittedly in a V1.0 state. So, they do get some credit for trying to establish the ecosphere but usually they are talking to people like me who already have made the investment and want to get value out of their investment, not accuring new people.
I hope they succeed as I truly love the language and even the IDE. I think the VCL part of XE2 and the IDE are a great product. I hope XE3 makes FireMonkey more usable and have forked over my SA bucks to see. But its always a debate within myself when the SA date arrives whether to make the bet. The disappointment of XE was so major that I lost a tremendous amount of faith in them. Thats where I become sceptical, not David I’s reference to a probably entertaining Guy Kawasaki presentation.
I was responding to a specific whinge that I was singling out Embarcadero for criticism w.r.t the way they treated the dissemination (and suppression) of information to their customers (i.e. in this specific context, developers). Indeed, I was specifically asked why I wasn’t complaining about Microsoft or Apple as well.
When making those comparisons, and seeing how stark the differences are, the prices being charged to the people receiving the service attendant with the goods to which those services related cannot be avoided.
But price was not the primary point of comparison or complaint.
Embarcadero seem to think they are no different and no worse than anyone else. That is perhaps the more worrying aspect of the whole thing.
Just wanted to say great post!
I for one would like to see the end of QC as a black hole, and a feature freeze. I think EMBT needs to make what the product currently has, actually work. I am frustrated daily by IDE bugs that should have been fixed numerous updates ago. They need to get away from BOGO, bundling other products, and using other marketing strategies to increase sales and concentrate on making the contents of the box worth the sticker price (or lower the sticker price). Using the same marketing games that my grocer uses only frustrates me more, as does putting more “features” in the box that are half baked, rather than finishing and refining what is already there.
Have to agree with all of that Larry. More focus on stability and fixing problems that result from a new release are the key things for me.
We know full well that if you want fixes, you only stand a chance of getting them in the current release – you can more or less rule out fixes for previous versions. That results in many people always being behind with version updates – waiting until they perceive stability in a certain area (generics for example) before jumping on board with a release.
FireMonkey and cross platform are the latest “must have” features to hit us. How long will focus stay on those to the detriment of core functionality and stability ?
Let’s jump onto the bandwagon!
Let me see… hm, yes. I think this is one the most brilliant analogies I’ve read regarding Embarcadero and its behavior towards its customers. They seem to think they are the enemy.
I don’t know how their sales chart look like, but I think if they are on a positive trend they should be bold and open up a little. Free (uncrippled) versions for personal use (those Russian hacker guys already use cracked versions, so they are not lost sales), better deals for small companies (up to 5 licenses) and better upgrade paths.
Oh, and keep an eye on resellers – in my country they don’t do a very good job (I had to practically beg them to let me buy; they also sell Microsoft tools, and they pushed hard towards that direction.)
Now, is Embarcadero listening?
You raise a lot of really good points. One problem with the comparison on price between Embarcadero and Apple or Microsoft (a comparison I’ve made before) is both of the latter sell a platform, and provide developer tools to support that platform. The platforms are the revenue source. They will happily give away their developer tools to improve the platform, thus improving their revenue. Of course it isn’t completely cut and dry: Visual Studio Ultimate is obviously a revenue source too.
Embarcadero sells development tools as their main revenue source. So they can’t offer it as a loss leader to promote some other product. This is a double edged sword though. While they are justified in charging a higher price, the onus is on them to offer a superior product. There are a number of companies that offer alternative iOS development tools that are way more then $99 – and they even require you have the $99 membership from Apple on top if their licenses.
As far as openness vs. closeness; I was actually hopeful that CodeGear would change that once they left Borland. The story I heard was that because Borland was a publicly traded company, they had to be careful about “forward looking statements” being properly vetted. You mentioned SOX compliance. Of course CodeGear and Embarcadero are not publicly traded, so it seems to be more a case of “we’ve always done it this way” now.
Anyway, I always think a “critical friend” is important.
See my reply to Neal. I hesitated to mention price at all as that was not the primary point of comparison or complaint, but when comparing the level of service and information offered to paying developers, what the developers are paying for – among other things – access to those services is worth taking into consideration.
So I decided to mention it, even tho I feared some people would be diverted by it from the main point. Fortunately so far most people seem to have recognised that main point. 🙂
I too now look back on the CodeGear period with some sadness. It was, sadly now it seems, a false dawn. 🙁
I agree with your post. This whole secrecy attitude is only harming both Embarcadero and their customers. I do hope that sooner or later (sooner would be nice) they will come to their senses and stop protecting what doesn’t need to be protected.
Agreed. Secrecy and NDAs are pretty much useless.
If you were a competitor of EMBT, wouldn’t one of the first things on your to-do list be to buy Delphi and sign-up for every beta and special access program possible? I would, and I’m sure such competitors already have.
The sad thing is, I really don’t think there are any competitors that feel sufficiently “threatened” to go to the trouble.
It’s like the anti-piracy measures Embarcadero use: the only people it affected by it – with the inconvenience and frustration it causes – are their customers.
Similarly keeping everything secret just denies information from the people who need it most: customers. Competitors most likely really aren’t that interested.
They should hire young market people?
Yeah hire social coding experienced people and fire all existing marketers/evangelists. But please retain (and expand) engineers.
This maybe off-topic, just a small opinion.
I don’t know how profitable Delphi is for EMB. Maybe they are balancing on the edge and that’s the reason why improving is a bit slow.
Don’t really want to judge anyone, cause it’s really hard to create stable and big product.
But for example FPC and Lazarus guys work without money at all. Well there are donations, but you know, donations are ridiculous small.
I can’t deny FPC and Lazarus have bugs, but at least I see chances the bugs will be fixed. I always can hire core-developers to fix things fast. If guys worked full-time I don’t even dare to imagine how good it could be.
I do mostly win32 apps. I love Delphi but I’m thinking maybe it’s better for me to invest some money/efforts to add features I miss to Lazarus/FPC than wait for Delphi to wake up.
The problem with Embarcadero releasing FireMonkey so quickly is that the only way to get sensible answers to how to do OS X stuff is to rely on two developers, Phil Hess and Chriss Rolliston. They must have plenty of their own work to do to earn their own livings and yet nobody else from EMBT is ever to be seen in the newsgroups to support their products.
I am trying my best to let people know how OS X works as opposed to Windows, and to point people towards Phil and Chris’s stuff but even that is not enough to cover everything that people are struggling to do.
word.
Comparing Embarcadero to Apple is silly, and you know it.
Visual studio gives you a windows only solution.
Apple XCode gives you an apply-only tool solution.
How about you name me another company that lets you build Mac and Windows apps with a commercial IDE, that is comparable? I’ll even answer this question for you; You could compare Embarcadero fairly to RealSoftware, makers of RealBasic. Or you could compare them to QT/Nokia, which sells a commercial toolchain and sells the commercial version of the QT library for C++.
In all valid cases for comparison (where a commercial vendor markets a multi-platform IDE tool) you will find that they exist, and continue to succeed, not by being cheaper than Visual Studio (the monster 500 pound Windows tool) or XCode (the freebie that Apple makes to feed the App store that makes them billions of dollars in profits per year) but by offering developers something they don’t get elsewhere.
Normally I like you, even when you get a bit snippy, but you’re being extremely unreasonable, bordering on unprofessional, here.
W
I am not and was not comparing the PRODUCTS or the PRICE. What was being compared is the service and information/communication level that the respective companies provide to the customers/users of their development products.
Price was mentioned only as an aside, and the specific products mentioned only because, well, those are the products to which the information, communication and service (or lack there-of) relates in the relevant context (i.e. customers of development product).
“Comparing Embarcadero to Apple is silly, and you know it.
Visual studio gives you a windows only solution. Apple XCode gives you an apply-only tool solution.” – LOL!
Only XE2 is somewhat cross-platform, while the same behaviors were already there when Delphi was a Windows-only solution (and it is still, mostly).
The only real difference is Emb is a dev tools company, and the others are not. But that also means *developers are their main customers* thereby they should be their focus. Instead you see companies like MS and Apple which understood developers – and applications – are important to bring users and thereby money to their platforms, while Emb looks to think they are not, probably because they think once they get money for products they’re done.
I understand perfectly Emb products can’t be cheap because they are the main source or revenues, but exactly for that reason they should be better than average, well maintained and customer should be cared well enough. And that’s true whatever platform you support.
That’s kind of silly. Those boilerplate “clauses” have zero legal weight. They could only actually bind you if they were part of a contract that you had agreed to and signed. Unilaterally declaring “this whole thing is a secret and you can’t tell anyone about it,” especially in a footer (where you don’t see it until *after* you’ve read the whole thing) is nothing but a gimmick.
Indeed. I guess you could not see my tongue stuck firmly in my cheek at that point. 😉
Just saw a post on Facebook that includes a link for Embarcadero doc, it includes the What’s new in XE3 for Delphi and C++Builder
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/groups/137012246341854/
PDF link – http://bbs.2ccc.com/attachments/2012/courage2008_20128992520.pdf
Wow – looks like a draft/work in progress, but thanks for sharing. I hope you don’t mind my “promoting” this information to “headline” status by adding a new post mentioning it. That way more people will see it than it if were just here in the comments and on FaceBook. 🙂
No problem and thank you for all the great posts
You guys should start believing in what you have seen so far. XE3 won’t bring lot’s of new features, this document is pretty much final, 2-3 more weeks and XE3 is out.
Firemonkey only updates
C++ 64bit compiler is out, maybe it will be included in some update around October, again MAYBE
If you are waiting new mobile stuffs, forget about, they can’t deliver the iOS compiler now, Android maybe next year in alfa stage
Things are getting worse at Embarcadero and they are planning to lay-off more engineers, like they did last year after XE2 release
@Inside Embarcadero
Assuming emb is going to lay-off more engineers, I suppose there won’t be burst in Delphi compiler, like optimizations, LLVM, class libraries, and those features FPC has from years (syntax and compiler stuff) ?
Or maybe I’m hopefully wrong?
Well, I just hope XE3 is a good version.
I hear from a very safe source that Embarcadero will shutdown their office in Romania, as far as I know the compiler engineers are not there.
This is nice:
“…Professionals take responsibility for the code they write. They do not release code unless they know it works. Think about that for a minute. How can you possibly consider yourself a professional if you are willing to release code that you are not sure of? Professional programmers expect QA to find nothing because they don’t release their code until they’ve thoroughly tested it. Of course QA will find some problems, because no one is perfect. But as professionals our attitude must be that we will leave nothing for QA to find…”
* The_Professional_Programmer
EMB should read this in an endless loop 🙂
Also they *should focus* on product’s quality – tons of “basic functionality failure” QC reports aren’t fixed (generics, code insight, for-in loops, IDE etc).
FMX1 is just unusable for serious projects – it has many bugs, *performance problems* etc.
Delphi is missing basic built-in features like certificates, encryption, hashing, updated SOAP support etc. Nowadays these are a must.
Also which prof. dev. believes things happen using their “Just by one mouse click” advertisement?!? Delphi is not used only for placing pictures, effects and animations on a couple of forms!
EMB pretends to be rushing for having new technologies in their products. No – they rush only to release their products yearly.
And they have to listen more to what the Community says/wants. Feedback is very important. But first they have to begin sharing what they do earlier – not on World’s tour or after they ship!
For me they *must* focus on improving quality of one Delphi/Builder version for about 1-3 years *AND* then release new version – a version that has really new and *working* features. The reason for that is very simple: when I buy RAD I expect to work on the “real thing”, but not to face bugs and missings everytime I do projects. Finding solutions or workarounds only wastes dev’s time. And this is not RAD’s purpose, right?
I really hope EMB is going to change their approach *soon*. If not – they will constantly loose customers (i.e. money). At least they will loose me as a customer. Then you. Then him. Then what?!? Is that RAD’s roadmap?
Being their customer for about two years I now watch not for what’s new, but for what’s fixed…