Like most people who work with Delphi, I was initially pretty stoked to get hold of a copy of the latest IDE to play with some of the new [amazing] features of the product but at $500US for a product I’m just playing with, and not very often at that, just doesn’t seem appealing any more. Fortunately, they left enough of the good stuff in the Starter edition that it remains well worth the $150 I have to pay for it, and I actually do get the chance to have a go at FireMonkey, Generics, Attributes, Enhanced RTTI, Source Code Management Integration and most of all [for me personally] ... Live Bindings.
So, what’s the point of the post .. well, I expect that now that I have a totally new perspective to play with, I might be able to come up with a post or two on how Embarcadero can improve the Starter Edition and make it a bit more appealing to the target audience and perhaps one or two on how Starter Edition users can replace [part of] what Embarcadero has hacked out with third party tools like CNWizards, TWM’s Enhanced GExperts, Model Maker Code Explorer ... and more. Something of a self appointed advocate perhaps. With any luck, not the only one.
Thanks for stopping by,
-- Dave
I'm not so sure that even with your new perspective that you're part of the target market for Starter. My understanding is that it's all in the name, it's Delphi for people just "starting out". Even hobbyists are supposed to outgrow it.
ReplyDeleteIf I were at Embarcadero and a Delphi blogger of 5 years told me about features that shouldn't have been omitted from the Starter edition I'd take that as an endorsement that they were correctly omitted.
That said I believe OSX and iOS were incorrectly omitted from Starter. They represent a genuine new market for Delphi where a "starter" version would be a great opportunity.
Personally I think that the Hobbyist and Home markets are important. If the App market should have taught anybody anything it's that if you play your cards right you can sell millions of copies of a product by making it cheap. I mean, with digital distribution, what's the reason NOT to go for a low price point. I think that the starter edition should be $29.95, but then, I'm obviously not the guy deciding that.
ReplyDeleteI'm lucky that my employer buys me my toys, as I wouldn't be spending $500 or $1000 to buy the upgrade to Pro. For my own use, I'd spend $150 to have a legal copy of Delphi at home, and that's where Starter is really quite reasonably priced, even though I wish it was even cheaper.
Even an a-la-carte model, where the Pro and Enterprise SKUs are GONe, and the starter edition can be upgraded piece by piece to Enterprise, buying what you want, would have huge benefits; More people would buy what they need. Embarcadero would learn what features people were willing to buy...
Guess what, given the choice of paying $99 for Embarcadero's built in refactoring features, I'd say forget it and buy Model Maker Code Explorer.
:-)
And once you've got an a-la-carte IDE feature purchase feature, why not let people buy other add ons and components from inside Delphi; Why not sell components, and IDE add-ons from third parties and add the try and buy for each of those plugins right to the IDE?
Warren
To Lachlan: A starter who wanted to start with iOS would have to have both a Mac and a Windows setup, both connected. This means the starter would need probably a Mac with Parallels or VMWare Fusion and, say, Windows 7. This would greatly add to the cost and is probably not something a starter would do.
ReplyDeleteWarren: great ideas; great for the customer. But perhaps a support nightmare for Embarcadero.
ReplyDeleteAs another hobbyist developer using D2010, I shall look forward to your future posts.
ReplyDelete@Lachlan ... you’re likely correct in what “they” see as their target market for the Starter edition but I’m of a different opinion. They’re wrong, it happens - I’m sure they’ll get over it. Perhaps when they do, they’ll rename it Personal like they should have at the onset.
ReplyDeleteThe frightening part, having made this choice, is ... is this it? Like the previous attempts at providing an entry level version ... will it just get dropped?
Well, perhaps my vision of that should/not be in the “Starter” might be a bit skewed due to experience but I see that in a different, more of a helpful, light. I agree that not including Win64/OSX/iOS was not a very clever thing to do but it allows for growth of the product.
A lot of people believe that this edition is the right thing to do ... we need to convince Embarcadero that it’s worth what it’s costing them and help them refine it into the product it could be. I see opportunity.
@Warren I, and I expect many many others, agree with you. There must be a better product model for Delphi, it’s 2012 - how could there not be. Then again, it seems to be working. Can it work better? With the recent growth announcements from Embarcadero it’ll be interesting to see where this takes the company and its products - if they go anywhere at all :)
ReplyDeleteI’ve been using Model Maker Code Explorer for quite a while - it is the first 3rd party control any user should buy in my opinion. Having said that the out of the box IDE [Pro+] does seem to be creeping into that realm more and more.
@Max ... I expect you're using the Pro edition. I hope that anything I do post will help out in some small way. The big question for me in regards to the move was "Can I do what I want to do with the product I'm choosing?" For me the answer involves 3rd party tools to replace features I don't want to work without - some are free others aren't. Making this choice is what I plan on concentrating on initially.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Warren: I'd love to see the a-la-carte model you're describing, though I doubt we ever will.
ReplyDeleteRudy: I suspect there would be enough people who can get their hands on both OSX and Windows to make it worth their while.
@Lachan: Sure, there will be people whi have both a Mac and a Windows PC or Windows in a VM, but how many would there be and how many of them would be "starters"?
ReplyDelete@Rudy... why does "starter" have to equate to "cheap skate" ?
ReplyDeleteThere could easily be a household with both a Mac and a Windows PC or a Mac running Parallels, where the person buying the computers isn't the person with a budding interest in software development.
Even if they are the person footing the bill, it makes no sense at all to say "Well, since you clearly have money to buy kit, we are going to milk you for your $'s when it comes to your FIRST development tools too".
That budding new developer has to choose: Spend a significant amount of money on Delphi Pro in order to try it out for developing for OSX/iOS *AND* pay Apple to sign up as a developer... or just pay the Apple fee and use the FREE software tools.
Embarcardero have an uphill struggle to compete with the native toolchain as it is, given their decision to adopt a proprietary, less capable (in key areas, perhaps more capable in others), less well supported, lower quality and less well known framework.
Adding a premium price tag on to that is the LAST thing they should do if they are at all serious about fostering this market.
And if they aren't serious, then they would be better off staying out and not sending confusing mixed messages.
@Rudy: 52186 and climbing ;-)
ReplyDelete... who'll all have to suck it up and buy the Pro edition if they want to experience what Delphi can do in Win64, OSX and iOS. Looks like another banner year for Embarcadero then eh :)
ReplyDelete