Re: FLABBERGASTED!
I'll try to avoid it, but this will probably turn into another "Borland
Marketing is stupid" post, so if you don't want to read another one of
those just go to the next thread now.
If I remember correctly, when Software Assurance was announced a few
years ago it was first priced very reasonably. Unfortunately by the time
we ordered Delphi 8 the price had jumped to about $1000/license so we (two man
shop) decided against it. When we upgraded our two D8s to D2005 we also
passed on SA because it seemed to be too expensive.
I was actually fairly happy with D2005 since I had not experienced all
the problems that many other people seemed to have had, so I was in no
particular rush to update to D2006. The help system was horrible but I
still had Delphi 7 loaded so I just used that when I needed help. All the
glowing reports about how great D2006 was had me thinking that perhaps
we should go ahead and upgrade after all, and then Nick Hodges went to
the trouble of creating the templates for VB(Visual Basic) conversions and that
finally pushed us over the edge to update.
SA price had dropped to $750 per license now so I was thinking it might
actually be worth doing. My brother wasn't so sure, so I decided to
hedge our bets and get one copy of D2006 with SA and one copy without.
That way if the next major version comes out in 2006 then we have saved
some money. If it doesn't then we haven't really saved any money, but we
might possibly use one or two of the three support incidents that come
with the SA.
On the 12th I went to shop.borland.com and ordered D2006. On the page
where the quantities are input, I changed the D2006 quantity to "2" and
it automatically changed the SA quantity to "2". I just changed the SA
quantity back to "1" and had it recalculate and all was fine. The
product shipped on the 13th and we got it a couple of days later.
At this point I am starting to feel better about the Borland stock that I
own. There's a new head man who supposedly understands developers, and
they have a fantastic product to sell. If they would just wake up to the
fact that they need an entry level version of the product to get new
developers involved then all would be right with the Borland world.
Then I get the phone call.
John (I didn't get John's last name) from Borland called. The first call
was a little strange, but he seemed to think I was confused when I
placed the order and that I should want to buy another SA license. I
carefully explained my thought process on that and while he did not seem
to understand, he finally gave up on trying to sell me another SA
license and hung up. I just wrote this off as a follow up sales call and
forgot about it.
Then on Thursday John calls back. It seems he had been given a memo from
(some group with higher authority that I don't remember the name of) and
that he was informed that the SA is an all or nothing thing. He tells me
I have two options, either buy another SA license, or get a refund on
the one I had purchased. I was in shock so our conversation was probably
very strange. After going back and forth, I finally just told John that
Borland had offered to sell me the product, I had purchased it and I was
keeping it and that I had no intention of buying another SA. At that he
hung up and that is where it stands.
Yesterday I was just mad, but after sleeping on it now I am just
frustrated. I know the Borland focus is on the large corporations and
they have ignored the small shops for some time, but I was not prepared
for them to actually try to unsell a product they had already sold.
This really has me wondering about whether it is wise to enter into a
long term business relationship with Borland. We have made the decision
to migrate our VB(Visual Basic) code to Delphi and I think it would be good for us
once we got past the initial migration. However what happens to us if
Borland decides they really can not be bothered to sell to small shops
anymore and for D2009 the licenses start at $20,000 unless you can buy
in quantities of 100. We could also have a problem if in 2010 we decide
we need to hire another Delphi Developer. I don't see many new
developers entering the market since there is no entry level version of
Delphi, so we could find ourselves in need of a developer we can not find.
I know that Borland has survived atrocious marketing for years on the
basis of their superior product and that will most likely continue to be
the case. Unfortunately now we have to wonder not just will Borland
survive, but will they let themselves be bothered to sell their
wonderful product to us lowly small shops.
I know it sounds like I am over reacting and I apologize for the long
rant, but I just had to get this off my chest.
Harry Barclay
