Re: A marketing question

Danijel,

RTC Portal VCL + SDK Basic = 399 EUR

<snip>

Gateway code. Only if you wanted the full source code of the Gateway, your total cost would be 799 EUR.


Ah, I see. OK, 399 is a more reasonable figure - but I will have to read up on what the 'Gateway' actually does. Since the source code for that component costs 400 euro (799-399) it is presumably doing something sophisticated/important for system operation.

Don't make changes to third-party components. Report bugs and let the component vendor fix them. If there is a feature you can not add without making changes to the component code, ask for an update to allow you do what you need. This not only helps you avoid going through every update to see how you can integrate your own fixes (again), but also helps the components becoming more stable and useful.


Fine in theory, but it doesn't work that way in practice. Quite often I need a change and I need it 'now'. I also don't care if the change breaks things for other people ...I just want my requirements implemented immediately (more precisely, in line with the demands of my customers - which frequently means 'within 48 hours').

To give a recent example, the TcxProgressBar only allows '%' as a display suffix and I need 'Amps', 'Volts', 'Watts' etc. This may or may not be a feature of interest to others but what is certain is that I am not going to wait around while DevEx 'think' about implementing it. I would only consider going back to a vendor for things if I was going to get a committment to implement (or a straight refusal) AND a solid timeframe for a release (measured in 'days', not 'weeks').

I have been patching component vendor source code since Woll2Woll were a bit slow with their 32 bit release of InfoPower and I ported the Delphi 1 source myself. I also worked in the component vendor business for several years with ElevateSoft so I have dealt with this issue from both perspectives. I am not suggesting that component vendors *should" provide a level of service as described above (because I know they can't) - I am just explaining why (for me) source code exists to be patched (and that includes the VCL itself from time to time).

1) RTC Host, Viewer and Control work through firewalls and proxy servers by using the HTTP protocol, acting like a Web Browser.

<snip features>

Some of that is certainly interesting - now that you clarified the price point.

Eryk
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