Re: Announcing CodeGear RAD Studio 2007

Bob Swart wrote:

Hi IanH,

Do you recommend SA for single-language Pro SKU users? If so, can
you explain why?

I must admit it's harder to do for single-language PRO SKUs, because
the expected release cycle is about one year, and there are no other
upgrades part of it (like in the RAD Studio SKU).

Anyway, here are some reasons I give my potential customers:

#1. Anyone who was purchased subscription knows for certain that the
first time he has to pay the susbcription fee again is in 12 months.
There are no surprises her, which is nice for bookkeeping (I like
knowing in advance how much money I have to budget for expenses - and
so do a lot of my clients; it matters a lot if budget should be
allocated for Q4 or Q1 for example).

#2. During the active subscription period, you will get any upgrade
you subscribed to. This may or may not be cheaper than dividing the
upgrade price over the period of time (depending on the 12 month
subscription period, you can have a period in which there is no free
upgrade, or a period where there may be one or even two upgrades).
The point is that you will get the upgrades as soon as they are
available (especially when you have ESD, which is what I offer, you
only need a download link + new serial number for the new SKU).

#3. Apart from the free upgrades, you are also entitles to three
incident support calls with CodeGear during the 12-month subscription
period. That means someone to talk to to explain your problem (which
may be more satisfactory than using QC, although I highly recommend
using QC as well).

#4. Your subscription is not only a fixed amount of money that you
pay each year, it's also a fixed amount of money that CodeGear
receives each year from you (assuming you renew every 12 months, of
course). This means that CodeGear also has a good idea what the
income is / will be and can allocate R&D, marketing and other budgets
accordingly. Which in the end is good for Delphi as well, of course.

Lack of "budget at hand" can be a reason not to go for subscription.
Calculating the average price of the upgrade divided by the period it
takes to release the upgrade may help in a low budget situation (but
a fixed small fee each year may be easier to allocate or justify than
a somewhat larger upgrade fee at a less-expected interval of time -
plus you're missing the support incident calls).

Finally - for my clients only - purchase of subscription also
entitles you to a 50% discount of my PDF courseware manuals (not the
ones sold by Lulu.com, but the more expensive ones that include
support by e-mail). If you take subscription for an Enterprise or
higher SKU, you can trade that 50% discount for a discount on
training days. Again, BeNeLux only, I'm afraid ;-)

Thanks, Bob.

While none of these considerations are of interest to me, I appreciate
the list - it means I did not miss anything, apart from your
courseware/training discount, obviously.

BTW, is it just me, or are these narrow regional-based reseller
restrictions just getting in the way of improved customer experience?
Why should I be prevented from buying from you, because you are in a
different part of the EU? My guess would be that this could actually be
illegal under current EU law.

Cheers,

Ian
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Announcing CodeGear RAD Studio 2007
    ... Anyone who was purchased subscription knows for certain that the first time he has to pay the susbcription fee again is in 12 months. ... which is nice for bookkeeping (I like knowing in advance how much money I have to budget for expenses - and so do a lot of my clients; it matters a lot if budget should be allocated for Q4 or Q1 for example). ... This may or may not be cheaper than dividing the upgrade price over the period of time. ... Your subscription is not only a fixed amount of money that you pay each year, it's also a fixed amount of money that CodeGear receives each year from you. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
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  • Re: Announcing CodeGear RAD Studio 2007
    ... This may or may not be cheaper than dividing the upgrade ... price over the period of time (depending on the 12 month subscription ... resolved with a direct bug-fix from CodeGear FOR THE REPORTING CUSTOMER ...
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