I don’t enjoy posting this news. I really don’t. I had hoped that my next post would be a more positive report following the Auckland leg of the XE3 World Tour this morning (and that will come later today).
But I feel this news is so important that it has to be mentioned, so here it is.
From XE3 onwards, your Delphi Professional EULA will prohibit you from using Delphi Professional for anything other than local data access.
If you want to build client/server database applications using Delphi Professional, you will be required to purchase a “Client/Server Add-On” pack.
This goes beyond the fact that you do not get (or can otherwise use or install) client/server drivers for the DBExpress or other “built in” data access frameworks, but extends even to 3rd party data access technologies.
That is, whatever you may be able to do or achieve – technically – using some 3rd party component or library with your Delphi Professional compiler, you cannot legally create a client/server application.
Never mind any 3rd party components or libraries, this same prohibition will apply even if you are using naked, unadorned Microsoft ADO.
Grandfathering
It is worth mentioning that this will apply to new licensees only. That is, if you have a current XE2 or XE license and upgrade to XE3 (or presumably are on SA), then your rights (or rather the lack of any restriction in this area) from those prior EULA’s in this area will roll forward.
But if you fall outside the eligible upgrade window or are otherwise a brand new user, then this new EULA restriction will apply to you. Then again, with this restriction in place I don’t think we need to worry about any new Delphi users, do we ? 🙁
Not that this “grandfathering” is any great generosity on the part of Embarcadero. More likely they would have loved to put the screws down on all of us [Pro licensees], but I presume they were prevented from trying to do so only on the advice of their legal department.
And obviously, if you are an ISV with current Delphi Professional licenses then those licenses can be upgraded to XE3 and continue to be used to create client/server applications. But if you acquire any further new licenses for new staff members (your Delphi team is growing, right?) then those new licenses will be prohibited from being used for client/server application development.
So if your existing application is already client/server, and you need additional Delphi licenses for new team members, then from now on you are forced to purchase Enterprise licenses or the Client/Server Add-On Pack.
Arguably they may have a hard time trying to enforce this and some people might suggest that we can just ignore it. But whether or not that is the case, as an insight into the mindset of the management (or whoever it is that is making these decisions) at Embarcadero, it is revealing and, more particularly, upsetting.
Are they trying to kill Delphi ?
Provenance
I stress, this is not speculation, rumour, scare-mongering or FUD.
I cannot and will not say how the post in that forum came to my attention. I certainly did not post it myself. But I can say that at first it was too outrageous and scandalous to believe. My initial reaction was disbelief that Embarcadero would try anything so foolish or mean spirited. So I checked and double-checked.
Had there been even the slightest question of doubt as to it’s authenticity I would not have mentioned it.
Of course, if Embarcadero want to retract this change and perhaps even deny it was ever going to happen, then I for one will be over the moon.
Now, I have to pack some bags and go door knocking on the local foreign diplomatic missions …. 😉
The new EULA won’t affect me. I don’t buy XE3. 😉
Microsoft Skype would not get Metropolis UI also,
Oh, cruel fate! (Just pulling some legs obviously)
What??? Are they nuts???
Oh, I see, it’s a leaked mail from some partner under NDA, so they can still deny anything ever happened… and they will… won’t they?
Nope. Check out the forums. David I has confirmed it, and he’s trying to play damage control.
What are they doing??? I guess your statement is true, they trying to kill Delphi. I’m starting to get tired of this weird marketing. Time to move on and leave Delphi?
Wow–I can hardly believe it! I’m starting to wonder if this is the end of the road for me with Delphi (I’ve never purchased anything higher than Pro). Not that purchasing a client-server add-on would bankrupt me, but it’s the whole corporate attitude that seems to have forgotten about quality and documentation and just the fun of programming that seems to be taking the life out of this product.
With FM2 no longer containing support for iOS and mobile support only in beta, I don’t understand why they would even release this product already–it seems like everything is in a state of flux. OK, it must have to be to satisfy shareholders (another indication the life draining away.)
I’ve been a long hold-out for Delphi, but it’s getting really depressing.
Haven’t you noticed that the price of Pro + the Client/Server pack is slightly more than the cost of Enterprise, even though the Client/Server pack contains LESS than there is in the Enterprise edition?
If buying the Client/Server pack won’t bankrupt you, I say buy Enterprise and be done with it 😛
As for this EULA change… it’s DISGUSTING!
I had not checked the price, but if the sum is actually greater than the Enterprise version, then you’re right, just buy the Enterprise version. But in that case, why on earth offer the C/S add-on?
This is factually incorrect. Delphi Pro + Client/Server Add-On is still quite a bit cheaper than an Enterprise license.
This is pretty bad news.
But thanks for pointing it out.
I can not believe this is not an abusive licensing clause.
Forbid someone to use a product for its own use was always hard to figure, but in this case it sounds infamous.
Could make sense to say that if you make more than 1,000 $ with their product, you will have to buy a Pro license, and that a Starter is not enough.
But imagine you want to create a Client-Server application for non-profit target (like a home app). You won’t be allowed to do it unless you buy an Entreprise version.
In the 21th century, pretty everything is connected, i.e. Client-Server. Even a browser start to behave like a server (via websocks and such).
Pretty abusive clause.
Delphi killer.
Damn show-stopper for me.
Our own Open-Source framework is Client-Server oriented, and allow creating scalable Client-Server applications even with an Oracle DB system back-end (direct access, without any DB.pas / DBExpress layer). http://mormot.net was running fine even with XE2 starter edition.
And now, you’ll have to pay for a lot of stuff you really don’t need nor use.
This leads us to a clear switch to FreePascalCompiler or good old Delphi 7/2007 for the server part, and something like SmartMobileStudio for the client GUI part (rich AJAX apps work on Win&Mac Desktop, iPhone, Android, and even Metro). Our framework is fully Unicode even before Delphi 2009, so we won’t need the overweight of Delphi 2009+.
‘Trop c’est trop’ as we say in France.
The biggest impact is/will be on the developers of the client/server solutions for those Pro users who don’t need or want all the other features in Enterprise.
The saddest part is that there probably is a market for Pro users who might want to buy a client/server add-on specifically to acquire the client/server drivers for DBExpress. Trying to force people to do it is the mistake imho. Why should I (were I not already a licensee) be legally prohibited from writing code that uses ADO, for example, for client/server purposes ?
Even more bizarre, under these terms if I used Delphi to create a DB server and my own remote client, I could legally use Delphi Pro to create my own server and client, but I could not then legally create an application using those technologies that I created myself, without purchasing a Client/Server Add-On!!! Ridiculous!
Wow! I know of a few 3rd-party database vendors who are going to be pissed.
Way to support the ecosystem (3rd-party component providers) that feeds you, Embarcadero!
I haven’t read the original article but isn’t there a slight chance that this could go hand-in-hand with a price decrease of the core product only adding up to the former price if you include the C/S addon? I mean people have been asking for a more modular SKU model for ages, right? Not that this is what I would have had in mind…
Yes, there is that chance. But I would have thought that such a positive move would be part of the World Tour publicity, not something they kept quiet. But here’s hoping. 🙂
Well, does it mean being internet client is also prohibited in Pro now? Most sites are dynamic today, relying on some database back-end.
Hence if i use some SOAP or even just plain HTTP + custom HTML parsing – i am still accessing remote database and reading some data from it. Those layers together, do they be viewed aggregated to constitute that “3rd-party library” ?
Damn, software should be re-classified for commodity goods and fall after 1st sale doctrine!
Good question. The email mentions “multi-tier” as well as “client/server”. Unless far more rigorously defined in the actual EULA, such a vague prohibition would – on the face of it – mean that it would be a violation of the EULA to use Indy (or raw sockets) to talk to a web service if that service accesses a database.
I would hope that Embarcadero are not that crazy that this was their intention. :S
Their intention is always “offer good product for good price and make good profit”. Dunno how well their intentions transform into reality. Looks like Lazarus team bribed someone there 🙂
The tricky question, am i right that purchasing XE3 Pro i also am entitled for XE2 Pro and XE1 Pro, without that craziness in EULA ?
Blog to be renamed.
DelphiLeaks by Jolyon Assange! 😉
Does N.Z have an Ecuadorian Embassy? 😉
You have to laugh, or else you’d cry.
If this is true, I wonder if what they say about sales increase is true also. Because I see no reason for such a change unless they are in desperate need of money. I said several time that while in 1995 C/S could hae been an Enterprise feature, it is no longer in 2012 when connectivity and databases are everywhere. But there are people in BorCodeDero (they survived any change) that are still living in a past that no longer exist, and are unable to change. I also often said that the Enterprise offers too little today to be an appealing SKU, but they won’t make it more appealing if instead of adding more high-end features to the Ent, they remove what are now “basic” ones from the Pro. I welcomed the addition of the C/S pack for those wanting to use dbExpress fully without needing Datasnap or the like. But this change, if confirmed, shows again that Delphi management is totally disconnected from reality, and they’re seeking ways to make money desperately – while lowering the feature/price ratio of an already expensive product.
If software CAN DO SOMETHING (without cracking or other unauthorized modification), you should not prohibid it to do this! It’s fair use of software!
If you do not need DBX, you buy 3-d party lib. If you do need DBX, you buy Client-Sefver pack! But EMRO should not restrict fair use of product: Delphi can compile and app ca use 3-d party lib, so it should be legal to use 3-d party lib!
If true, and not accompanied with a corresponding price drop in the Pro edition, this is difficult to understand and I share the disappointment. Previous Delphi releases have seen features gradually move down the SKU chain, this one is going in the opposite direction.
Delphi is in a tough spot with competition from other IDEs, some of which are free. Removing features will not make it more attractive to potential new customers.
The link to the post is currently dead, but lets take it at face value for now…
I can’t add much to the comments already made, other than to agree that this is seems to be some masochistic way to kill off your ecosystem.
I know there are many other components and providers affected, but as a customer of RemObjects, surely this kills the whole of the Delphi side of their business ? What would be the point of Delphi ROSDK and Data Abstract if you had to first buy (and then ignore) the add-on pack before you could legally use a third party tool ? That would be the position we would be in for any new developers (or even old developers being replaced by new) and I have no intention of being forced into switching to datasnap in this way. Maybe they will reduce the core Pro license cost, but I too think that’s highly doubtful.
For me it’s not specifically about the cost, but the nit picking and artificial restrictions that look set to be imposed. As others have said – what constitutes a client server application now ? If your tool is open to thrid party add-ons then there should not be artificial restrictions as to what those tools are capable of providing . Or equally, just using plain “out of the box” delphi Pro capabilities means you could be in violation of the license you’ve just purchased.
Madness and maddening…
Link still seems to be working from here. {shrug}
When EMB eat likes a bird, why do they need food for an elephant? Only for poops.
This EULA change doesn’t affect us anymore. After Delphi 1,3,5,6,7,2005,2006,2007,2010 (never used that last one) we switched to FPC/Lazarus with great success. No activation, can develop client/server apps, extremely fast bug fixes, comes with full source code, nice community, no need to waste time on negative things. (caused by EMB – as this blog illustrates).
“The king is dead, long live the king”
Looks like they are trying to squeeze out the last penny from Delphi users,
All the same, knowing that they killed Kenny then.
Other options not come to mind in connection with this document ……….
Hey, lets be positive.
Maybe EMB lower the Pro SKU to a really competitive price for XE3! And old customers will receive a Pro + Client pack version after upgrading. I believe this is the idea. Wait and see- 😉
If that were the case then why not say so, instead of talking about “grandfathering” existing licenses ?
I have no idea. I will never understand the marketers brain, do you?
Amazing how much can change in a year… from all the initial hype and optimism around FireMonkey this time last year -with the promise of early and regular updates to this somewhat embryonic framework to where we find ourselves today… disappointed.
FM has not received the TLC it needed during the XE2 lifecycle – the docs are still thin on the ground, there are still any issues that remain unresolved and now Embarcadero look to be eroding Delphi’s appeal in a whole new direction.
I think it’s fake. Em-ro cannot limit relations between me as developer and third-party component manufacturers. It’d exceed their competence.
It does not. See my reply at bottom (phone browser quirk)
I thought dev software gives rich opportunities for us to materialize our creativeness and for us to aid other people to get benefit of what computers can do.
These days EMB shows devs they can do even less for the same money!
What’s the “Professional” in “Delphi Professional” without the ability to do any Client/Server development?!?
Funny…I will not be surprised if they release radPHP Pro (oops..sorry…HTML Buil…bla…bla) with “local DB access only” 😀
Don’t get sad guys…we can do it with floppies too 🙂
if the PRO version will not be free, then
R.I.P. Delphi, no more words……………
Many wanted an Enterprise that does more so you get an Enterprise that does more:) and it does a lot more very likely. Just a guess.
Still not official news, but if this happen, with current price tag of Pro version, this will decrease the usage of Delphi more and more, beside will kill many third party companies.
If this was predicated on a lowering of the “Plain” Professional price so that “Plain Pro” + “the Client/Server Add-On Pack” equals “Current Pro” pricing it may not be such a bad thing.
… or perhaps XE3.5 Pro + “the Client/Server Add-On Pack” + “iOS mobile Add-On Pack” = current XE2 Pro pricing.
But that’s all just wishful thinking, I doubt very much that that will be the case.
How many more stabs in the back could this poor community take until it breaks apart?
Ah.. sweet memories.. I remember how I and my friends loved, yes we loved Borland at the time. Apple fanboys are nothing next to our bordamentalism we had at the time. And I see the degrees of frustration Emro causes now. I doubt the trust and love would be ever gained back even if they would like to earn it back. Emro is converting everyone from Delphi lover to Embarcadero hater.
I usually don’t post here but that does it. This is the stupidest marketing move I have ever seen and we’ve been in the software business for more than 25 years. This is probably a show-stopper for us. We will be looking for an alternative for sure. This is a sad day since we were a hard-core Pascal-Delphi shop, client of BorInpriseGearAdero since 1987.
Embarcadero just kills Delphi.
R.I.P. Delphi
Sad indeed…
I think this was done before. The normal Delphi and the much, much more expensive Client Server/Enterprise versions. And remember Midas?
Yes, I know thats not the same as forcing with a EULA. But we could still say Borland (then) was “chasing away” customers with too expensive C/S or Midas.
Remember the free Delphi versions? EULA stated that no commercial software is allowed to be written (IIRC).
Anyway, I feel sorry for Technology Partners. Some must remove any C/S features in libraries. And some win fewer customers because anyone buying new licenses for C/S will decide to use another programming tool.
By the way, how is Client/Server defined in law? How to prove something is multitier?
“…but extends even to 3rd party data access technologies”
That’s where the real party begins!
It’s like selling a car and saying that you can only drive it in roads and streets but not in the highway.
I really don’t understand what EMBT is trying. It all sounds to me as getting more milk from same cow.
Here I thought EMBT was moving to a a la carte pricing model which would have been a good move if it made it possible to buy Delphi at a reduced price without all the modelling, and other features we don’t use.
Looks like another case of “less is more”. Borland didn’t do much in the way of marketing. Now EMBT has all sorts of BOGO and bundling schemes, and does road shows. Their marketing guys just don’t seem to get it, but they seem to have a lot of say. It’s like they don’t survey their competitor’s products to see what features they offer for the same price.
We’re all capable of learning a different language, and the lead Delphi once has in the days of VB is gone. Client/Server functionality is a mandatory requirement for any “Professional” developer, and is what made Delphi the success it was. Removing a piece of core functionality that has been in place for what…15 years, would just be stupid. It’s only going to piss of the existing community whose loyalty is already somewhat strained, and discourage new adopters. Unless the Client/Server pack + Delphi = $ for Delphi Pro, EMBT would be making a serious error in judgement, and there would be absolutely no need for a Starter edition.
Don’t get so worked up… With the proliferation of the internet and non-storage devices these days, there is no client/server anymore. All data access is “local.”
Well, this is the point. Nowadays, WHAT IS CLIENT SERVER?
I made small app for friend to change one webpage on his website offline, then later upload with FTP.
Is that multi-tier?
We haven’t purchased a product from Embarcadero since Delphi 2010. We still use Delphi 7 for legacy code and Delphi 2010 for present code and non-legacy code. We stopped purchasing Interbase for all our clients from Embarcadero as well. We got fed up with their pricing schemes (& SA). We decided it was time to move on. Best thing we ever did. Too many choices today. Embarcadero, get your heads out of your arses!
IMHO, it would be better to add a new edition – “Delphi XE3 Hobby”, without “Starter” restrictions, under $300…
There are not many ‘other’ true options for Windows 32/64 app dev now, plenty for web and mobile stuff, so …
There is a simple, but not a straight-away answer.
All the third party add-on suppliers should now concentrate on adapting their products for Lazarus (some have).
Also, the gurus should get more active in this community too as they are/were in the Delphi one.
It seems like a win/win for the Delphi customer, now uncertain of their future with a company that does not seem to value them.
Fast Report is pointing to Lazarus, and i found this company that has a distribution of freepascal with lazarus plus lots of components CodePython http://www.pilotlogic.com/sitejoom/ , now i’m considering this new platform for new projects. Perhaps and i hope, prices will low or perhaps i’m beeing very naive. For Interbase i just forget about it, firebird is my choice and after that is postgreSQL. I once dreamed that one day embarcadero will join forces with firebird and together may bring a new powerful solution, but i guess it was only a dream. I still have faith in embarcadero i know this is a mistake and think they will fix it hopefully soon.
You don’t have to forget Interbase/Firebird when using Lazarus. There are the “IBX for Lazarus” components. Just like in Delphi.
If u talk about UnifiedIB, i definitely prefer them to IBX. Though last two years Henry seems having neither time nor willingness to apply patches
Here, in mORMot blog, and elsewhere pops up that idea, that library vendors have to implement DRM of a kind, distinguishing between
Pro and ProPack who knows how, including source – distributed libs.
I read the letter and where does that idea comes from? It only tells tech partners to put a banner like “this library can only be used starting with Delphi Enterprise or Delphi C/S Pack” . And that’s it. The rest is at developers choice. It looks to me like Emb may try to provoke piracy, like Microsoft, like rumors of German multimedia copyright holders. They would perhaps allow “abusing” bare Pro,making it excuse for poor sales and providing for “cherry-picking” of successful clients to cash from.
I suspect EMB official parterns will be forced to have the third-party components installer checking the installed IDE version.
For instance, if we follow EULA wording, RemObjects should refuse to install e.g. on Starter or Pro edition of XE3, unless a “grand-father” license proof is provided.
For Open-Source projects like mORMot, since we distribute the full source code, there is no mean of refusing installation. Adding such a banner like “this library can only be used starting with Delphi Enterprise or Delphi C/S Pack” is IMHO out of scope for our license and distribution scheme (and probably illegal in here in Europe).
FreePascal is on our roadmap.
mORmot code compiles on it (using a CodeTyphoon distro), some debugging is needed, but when the RTTI differences will be taken in account, it should work as expected. Would benefit also for the FPC community.
Can you quote the EULA? I only saw leaked mail that does not require DRM in installer. Also there is no point. I may install mormot or remobjects or whatever to only use for local db access – and how installer would tell?
The banner is perfectly valid: it is not the restriction u impose – nothing in the leaked letter touches modifiying ETP licences – but only your warning about EMBT’s restrictions. Legally it’s like those “smoking kills” banners on cigarette packs, having nothing in common with death threats.
I like recent developments in Delphi language. I feel Delphi generics more practical than FPC ones. Delphi closures are nice in theory but impractical, i’d prefer like C++ syntax for them, yet FPC has no closures at all. If only Delphi was not so buggy… Okay, i think XE2 would be relevant for long. Hopefully Andy would revive VclFix series and we’d be able just watch where goes the flow of events. For years i used Delphi 5 but recently was lured by those language enhancements. And – looking at some FLOSS libs nor me alone. Few years ago i’d feel fine switching from D5 to L1, but today it would be loss to me. I wish i could purchase only compiler/rtl/vcl/ide fixes from XE3 for proportional price tag. OTOH all recent XE3 revelations have that awfully bad taste, that emotionally i want to distance from Embarcadero Delphi though liking Delphi alone. If EMBT could be cloned, making two competing Delphi providers, i wonder if Delphi track could take differen direction
The Delphi NG’s are igniting with this.
It’s now been officially confirmed by David I.
There are some seriously upset people, including some sucessful &long time developers such as Kim Madsen (components4Developers) , Craig Peterson (Scooter) and Marc Hoffman (Remobjects).
There’s also a certain prolific Delphi poster who is completely embarrasing himself. (you know who he is)
It would all be great fun, if it wasn’t so sad.
I think this may be a tipping point to destruction 🙁
Wow! Let’s make bets if that topic would overgrow those Great Three FreeAndNil Topics that eventually crashed the forum database 🙂
All providers of 3rd party db or remoting solutions have good reason to be furious, this effectively adds 400-500$ to the cost of their product. This also effectively kills all free or open source db or networking components by making them only *legally* usable from the Entreprise SKU or Pro + cs pack.
Even data visualization components are affected (grids, charts…), as after all, what good is a data visualization component if you can’t connect to a db?
This is in practice as good as EOL’ing Delphi.
About xe3 price saw no numbers, but xe2 prices were €500 for Delphi Pro, €400 for CSPack and €1300 for Delphi Enterprise. With all bad tasting, i cannot say that Pro+CSPack would cost more than Ent. Rather strange claim made someone above
Yes, indeed. But everyone has the right to be wrong. 🙂
Having confirmed the pricing of Client/Server Add-On myself I shall now post a reply to that erroneous post drawing attention to the correction.
Sorry for out of line posting. Looks like phone browser is not well suited for the site to reply at locations.
No worries – I hope you don’t mind, I can’t actually re-thread your reply (as far as I can tell) so I edited it and added a link back to the comment it was a reply to, just for clarity sake. 🙂
[in reply to comment from Kryvich]
And it does not. It regulates your relations with delphi itself. You are prohibited from developing network-aware database-related applications with D.Pro. will u have extra libs or not is just insignificant. You may install all the libs u want. You just cannot use Delphi to develope certain class of programs, with or without those libs does not matter.
I remember that both Access and Excel were built upon Microsoft Jet database engine. I saw that Jet in ODBC drivers list AFAIR. Now, if my program uses TExcelApplication (stock COM wrapper) and its user opens xls-file from LAN shared disc, my program instantly turns into contrafact? Am i now expected to implement disc analyzis to deny files from mapped network drives? O’RLY? If my program is internet radio, streaming music from directories like Jamendo or IceCast it is contrafact under XE3 Pro? I wonder what is exact wording in EULA
For sure this will be removed from the EULA.
Embarcadero are setting off red flag after red flag.
Are they taking marketing advice from wallstreet or something…..
These sort of policies will only result in no new users and for those of us who have used it for years and years absolute cation probably followed by lets look at alternatives….lets face it allot of us are now at that stage with the “Hey, you need to pay more and get less” policy we are being feed by EMB !
I was reluctant to comment here, but now I do:
If you are all so eager to spend money and expect a good ROI,
then why not spend this here:
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Bounties
View my and correspondents’ responses:
Database Corruption kills Delphi:
http://delphihaters.blogspot.com/2012/08/database-corruption-kills-delphi.html
What are we paying for? Corruption?
http://delphihaters.blogspot.com/2012/08/delphi-what-are-we-paying-for-corruption.html
This latest EULA change is insane. They are desperate for cash and thinking of all possible ways to milk the Delphi cash$ cow.
More people will leave Delphi! The best thing that has ever happened.
So
Registration limit to 3 in XE2 in XE3…
Firemonkey that needs fixes+++ in XE2 abandoned
Can’t debug 64bit apps in XE2 on Win8…????a fix
and now this.
Embarcadero thinking – How can we alienate(piss off) all our users!!!
FreePascal/Lazarus XE3 for free (inclusive Client/Server, iOS, Android, Mobile Studio stuff)!
ftp://newwiki.freepascal.org/pub/lazarus/snapshots/
I told you guys some bad news earlier, now another and more bad news to come.
They are not only killing Delphi, but also killing their technology partners.
Borland people remain in Embarcadero and horrible professionals has been hired, Mr. John Thomas (aka JT) and Mr. Michael Swindell are responsible for this change.
Community can give an answer for that, DON’T BUY DELPHI XE3 and buy the end of this year they will be fired, the investor won’t accept bad results.
Delphi is the only profitable products, their database tools are dead and their appawave experiment didn’t sold 100k in the last 12 months.
… “more bad news to come” ???
This is freaking crazy…
buy the end of this year
You must have been working at EMB or still do(: Ultimate prove. Kidding.
J.T. Death on Arrival. He never had a chance. When is funeral? Oh, incineration – burnt by the monkey.
Any kind of tool is cumbersome to sell today. By the end of last decade customers shook their head in disbelief when the Oracle guys came to a site and said, ‘Now we start with data modeling’.
EMB offer the tools for an approach that is dead since the Smalltalk/OO Architect guys crashed the whole individual software development scenery in enterprise in the mid/late 90s early last decade. Then they have been moved to management and decided for Java, which was the only option left these days. And now the time of easy money is over and EMB new started exactly in the year of the change. Of course also at the customer sites you will have less employees today, but new customers and tooling as an approach for heavily expanding business … Today an Oracle administrator takes care of a few hundred instances in a data center …
Hi Inside Embarcadero,
We need some verification or — external verification.
We have reports from several people that AppWave is made using GPL software. Is that true? They used Magneto back-end GPL and put a pretty face on it. You can also verify this by looking at the similarity of the web-services called from AppWave to their back-end.
We have reports that DCC64 is written in C and contains parts of run-time codes – disassembled from Microsoft Visual C++ run-time library. It seems they are paying people to keep their mouths shut. Also, the development of the codes for Delphi has been going very badly. Maybe you can comment on how they used outdated PCs. LOL.
We have reports that Kylix was scrapped because the QT developers at Borland or now Emb. could not get a working non-GPL compiler without massively copying lots of GCC. Later they used the VGScene instead.
You can contact us at DelphiHaters you know, that infamous blog.
I don’t think this price hike is EMB’s decision. It comes from way above.
I have been following the main investor/owner (THOMA CRESSEY BRAVO) for more than 4 years now, and I have observed that all the IT companies owned by or invested (heavily) into by Thoma Bravo tend to show similar behavior.
It seems the Mutual Fund king is applying MF strategy to IT ;).
I doubt that TCB dictate to Embarcadero management how they should implement EULA, SKU tiering, pricing changes or feature development.
TCB of course will demand results, but how Embarcadero choose to go about trying to deliver those results is almost certainly up to them. Otherwise, why bother having an Embarcadero management team at all ? TCB could save a HUGE amount of money off the bottom line just by getting rid of that tier and simply issuing their instructions directly to the middle/man management teams below the executive.
@Yogi Yang,
Thoma Bravo is just watching, at the end of the quarter they look the number and if the EBTA is not where it should be they cut people, they did a small layoff last quarter.
And I can guarantee, the price and other decisions are made by Mr. Swindell and sales VP in EMEA and United States, most of the crazy ideas like this EULA changes are made by this guys.
And this is just the beginning, more to come
I don’t whant to know what more to come,
it’s scared me right now 🙁
Room for ‘improvement’ left. Believe me.
Simple thing – raise the prices and cut the costs. From year to year finance investors tighten the screws and when both the employees as well as the customers bleed, they say, ‘It has only just begun’.
The theory behind is simple. Cut budgets every year and people better said an organization will find a way. One day it works. The inner core of growing company must made up of people with just bones and muscles. Soldiers willing to accept every mission. A tennis match you don’t win at the base line.
“[A] small group of private equity firms like … Thoma Bravo have taken a much more aggressive approach. They select one of their portfolio companies to use as an aggregator vendor, and then acquire companies at a brisk pace to create new mega-vendors with financial resources, customer bases, and product footprints on par with some of the biggest traditional … companies.”
(Thoma Bravo, Website)
Once I read on a blog about the vision of growing into something big … This should scare you, because you will pay the growth and in the end you can be happy if you still fit into customer profile.
Poor employees at EMB.