Re: Delphi 8 vs Visual Studio

From: Will DeWitt Jr. (edge_at_boink.net)
Date: 06/24/04 

Date: 24 Jun 2004 09:23:16 -0700

K. Sallee wrote:

> > 1) The language of the offer does seem to indicate that your license
> > to the product may expire after 1 year (or 2 if you renew)
> No, it flat out states that :

Our definition of "flat out" must differ because they don't really
define what the "membership" is, and what it affects.

> > 2) Even if your license expires after 1 (or 2) years, it's still a
> > great offer for a company that's trying to get off the ground.
>
> It might, I agree, be a great offer for a company. But it needs to
> be examined in the needs and business plan of that company. It is
> not, by default, a great thing.

I don't see how you could reach this conclusion. Perhaps you could
provide an example of a company that wouldn't benefit from this
program. Even companies bent on using Borland products would benefit
(in the interests of keeping startup investment low-- e.g. - rather
than purchase copies of Windows XP Pro or Exchange/SQL Server/Windows
Server 2003, become a member of this program and receive the software
at a significant reduction-- if your business plan works out, you will
likely either a) be able to secure funding to purchase the software
outright or b) be able to purchase it outright from your profits).

Unless you're doing non-Windows development, I don't see how a startup
couldn't benefit from this.

> > I certainly don't see anything even remotely similar from Borland to
> > try and "lock in" companies.
>
> And I, for one, am grateful for that.

You're grateful that Borland is overlooking an important market segment
(companies that are starting up from almost nothing)? Companies that
try Borland products should want to stay with them, and if a startup
company experiences good results with Borland tools and technologies I
can't imagine a better reason for said company to buy the tools
outright at the end of their membership.

> > With MS you get access to $30,000+ USD of
> > software for just about 1% of the retail price.
>
> Well, I would not exactly say that myself. You can only use the OS
> and other goodies for developing and testing, hence they are legally
> crippled. You can not even get your personal e-mail on a computer
> with the "Testing" OS installed as this is not related to direct
> testing or development. If you feel the need to test run your
> software on all possible modern MS OS versions, this can of course be
> of great value.

I think you've misread the site then. The software that comes with
MSDN Universal (the OS's in every language, etc) are certainly
restricted as you state, but the other software doesn't appear to have
any restrictions, just an "for internal use" statement (which I take to
mean you can't turn around and resell). You seem to be taking a very
"the glass is not just half empty, it's all empty" attitude with regard
to their offer. The MSDN Universal licenses would cost nearly $15,000
all on their own. Toss in Exchange, SQL Server and an
Enterprise/Advanced edition of Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server
2003, plus 5 licenses for Windows 2000/XP Pro, Office XP/2003
Premium/Developer and the other software and it easily comes close to
or exceeds $30,000 total.

Will 

-- 
Want a 64-bit Delphi compiler for AMD64 / IA-32e?  Vote here--
http://qc.borland.com/wc/wc.exe/details?reportid=7324

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