I enjoyed the Twitter live-coverage and exciting revelations of DelphiLive! particularly from JimMcKeeth and marcocantu but also many others. Despite the surprise revelations of Project X etc a particular slide caught my eye amongst the many others:
Did you see it? ..ISVs, VARs, Consultants and Hobbyists.. I jumped at the phrase and asked Jim whether any of the Product Roadmaps he’d seen at DelphiLive had revealed any plans for a renewed focus on Turbo or Hobbyist editions of Delphi however it seems that they did not specifically mention anything. Luckily Jim had noticed the significance of this typo phrase too and was kind enough to pose my question to the new Delphi Product Manager, Michael Rozlog:
I should make it entirely clear that this should not be read as a statement of intent from Michael or Embarcadero but merely an indication of Michael‘s personal thoughts on Turbo or Personal Delphi editions. This is encouraging news though, as many of you will know I wrote a long Open letter to Codegear on the subject of the sadly neglected Turbos and received a lot of feedback indicating that many of you felt the same way.
So what now?
Personally I’m thrilled that there seems to be at least some internal support for a renewed Turbo or Personal Delphi Edition but as usual, the devil is in the detail, How can we get a great home/hobbyist product (as opposed to a crippled and essentially useless product) without costing Codegear precious sales/revenue?
There are several different facets to this problem:
- What type of audience is the product is actually targetting? (Home users, Small ISVs, commercial vs strictly hobbyists?)
- How should product be limited for that audience without damaging it’s viability or sales of the full product (As Delphi’s fate is intertwined with that of Codegear – not something we want).
There are three different potential products in my mind:
- A Purchasable Commercial Product which is essentially a step down from Delphi Professional SKU in both price and features made for smaller software shops and developers that don’t need the features of the full versions.
- A Non-commercially licensed product equivalent to the educational edition (which If I remember correctly is the Professional SKU?) where the price is a token amount to cover the cost of the bandwidth and packaging cost of the product.
- A Commercially licensed but absolutely free product which is crippled in its functionality and features even more than the current Turbo Explorer Editions.
As you might have guessed from my use of mildly emotive language in the 3rd point above and in my Open Letter to Codegear regarding the Turbos I consider the 3rd Option to be a non-offering. Sadly, previous statements from the former Delphi Product Manager, Nick Hodges, hinted that this was also the way he felt it might go.
I would be interested to see how the previous editions of Delphi impacted Sales (there must be paperwork, come on?) as I felt that these were always an amazing offering for Hobbyists and Home users wanting to take up the language (I remember finding Delphi 6 Personal on a magazine cover disc – presumably thanks to the always excellent Tim Anderson).
I would ideally like to see something in between the 2nd and 3rd options option a reality, I am not qualified to make a factual assertion on this but I don’t think it would hurt sales if strictly limited to non-commercial use in the license. Massive Feature limiting such as removing the ability to use 3rd Party VCL components as the Turbo Editions persued removes some of the most well-known and advantageous reasons for using Delphi in my opinion and is therefore unsuitable for an ambassador product (which these editions would be). I won’t rehash my argument about why the product needs to be both free and well featured (see my Turbo Delphi Open Letter) but I will say this:
Whether it is fair or not, Microsoft and the Eclipse foundation have forced their hand – a reasonably useful free IDE for home and hobbyist users wanting to experiment with a language is now a minimum requirement for competitiveness in the programming language market.
It is worth noting that the Updated Personal or Turbo delphi is currently only number 8 on the list requests at the Delphi Uservoice page, we really need people to vote for it and also to discuss their thoughts on the potential product in the comments over there.
Michael suggested that he was looking for feedback, so I’m looking for feedback. Firstly: What would your Turbo or Personal Product look like and secondly: what would you do if you were the Delphi Product Manager? How do the results of these two views differ? Please think about it and then either put it in the comments below or on the Delphi Uservoice page.
Jamie is a Software Development manager, Team Lead, Technical product owner and General Geek. In my spare time I develop in Delphi, Ruby, Python, C# and JVM languages (Java, Clojure). I am an enthusiastic advocate of hobbyist development and in particular tools which allow for hobbyist development. I am also extremely passionate about Continuous Delivery. Please have a good look around and enjoy anything that you find useful on this site. 
If you want an example of good practice have a look at realbasic. They offer a personal edition for $99 (or free if you choose the Linux flavour) that enables you to make commercial software. The professional edition ($299) allows you to cross compile your project on any of 3 platforms. Also theres a great community who are genuinely helpful to newbies, something I believe to be lacking at codegear.
And unlike codegear, Real software know how to treat their customers. It was an eye opener for me
jjb – I’m not sure REAL Software is a good example – you realise financial pressures have led to them recently redoing their SKU structure to the detriment of their old Pro SKU buyer, and furthermore, laying off their only full-time compiler engineer? Also, if Delphi were to imitate the ‘small and frequent’ release schedule of REALBasic (with the accompanying trough of regression bugs each release), it would be disastrous, far worse than the current situation where only new features are liable to have bugs missing in the previous release. (Of course, in an ideal world Delphi would be bugfree, but we live in the real world.)
Jamie – that you think one of 2006 Turbo Explorer’s only two restrictions relative to the Pro SKU was a no-no perhaps goes to show how difficult CodeGear’s decision is. The obvious problem with design-time extensibility is that some users may end up using third party plugins and components where they might have upgraded to the Pro SKU. E.g, say a new Turbo were not to include flashier parts of the VCL; if the IDE were still extensible, then some people may end up buying Developer Express or TMS controls where otherwise they would have forked out for a Delphi upgrade. Sure, that would be great for third party sellers, but CodeGear would be left with no immediate benefit.
On the other hand, my own shibboleth would be the inclusion of the VCL source, its availability being essential IMO to gaining any real competence in Delphi (and yes, I realise the old Personal SKU didn’t include it, though the D6 RTL was available via the FreeCLX project on Sourceforge). If things of the 2006 Turbo are for the chop, though, I can easily see that being first in line.
@jjb: $99 is a good price mark for most hobbyist developers and having good community support is also excellent. Codegear have been moving in this direction and Dee Elling recently announced a “Getting Started with Delphi” booklet which is now available:
http://blogs.embarcadero.com/deeelling/2009/04/27/38303
This is an excellent way of giving brand new users of the language a great start.
@Chris: You’re absolutely correct: it’s not an easy decision for Codegear and that’s partly what prompted me to draw up this post.
I also agree with you that adding third party controls to the IDE opens up the door for a lot more than might be intended but your assumption is that this money is leaking from Codegear’s pocket when in fact we’re talking about people who can’t afford Codegear’s products in the first place because they aren’t doing commecial development. In the UK, Delphi 2009 Pro is around £600 (iirc), there is simply no real way that a hobbyist will spend that much on tools that he is not intending on recouping the cost of imo. This also means that they’re very unlikely to spend money on VCL components for their own hobbyist / open source applications. This issue could also be made almost entirely redundant by enforcing a non-commercial license on the product.
i would like to see some sort of delphi standard like the version 3,4 and 5 from delphi with support for creating comercial apps for the small deveoper. They were without db support, but what the heck. They were very good for learning and programming freeware and shareware. I would pay up to 200€ for a dvd/cd version. I dont like the not install 3rd party components version from delphi for free. I would like to pay some money but i not too much. Thanks for reading. Murphy
@Chris
Real are not big but AFAIK the consensus is that it is a well managed business. Last year when they saw market conditions tightening they acted to cut costs. The compiler was an area where having put a lot of development effort in over the last few years Real decided to concentrate resources on other areas, such as enhancements to the IDE for which they actually hired staff last year.
By contrast, somewhere I read that Codegear employs about 300 people which, if true, seems like an awful lot. BTW is this true?
Real has been going about its business since 98, during that time adding the ability to compile for Windows and Linux as well as the Mac.
Over the same period think of all the poor choices made for Borland/Delphi.
For instance, what happened to Kylix?
The other day we had a 5 minute disclaimer before a Hello World demo on the Mac!
Have the people responsible for Delphi 8, Kylix and Delphi.Net all left Codegear?
The marketing, for one, hasn’t improved at all. For instance where are the webcasts/pictures/blogs from Delphi Live by codegear?
The website is still a confusing mish mash, the newsgroups don’t seem to have any new blood and they are sloooow and very unattractive. Where does a newbie go to get answers, where are the newbies?
Why on earth would one go out and fork out $900 to begin programming
when there are no resources of any merit to help you, provided by the vendor.
Realbasic provides sample projects, a well laid out 700 page user guide and an IDE help system that actually works.
But best of all at Real, are the forums where you’ll find users who know the product backwards taking the time to answer noob questions about the simplest thing.
Competing against MS and OSS is not easy but to my mind Real has got a lot more right than codegear has. Of the 2 it seems like a better bet.
A decent free Delphi version that supports 3rd party components and is regularly updated (like the old personal edition) is a must – if only to compete with the MS express tools.
I’m purely a hobby programmer and I’d love to be able to upgrade to a recent Delphi version. For me, the minimum requirement for a usable Delphi would be the ability to install 3rd party components. The inability to do this with Turbo made it useless to me.
Having said that though…I would happily pay a reasonable amount for a Delphi licensed for non-commercial software. A possibility might be: a free version with 3rd party component support, but no vcl source and a fairly inexpensive paid-for version with the vcl source and a component pack like tms or devexpress bundled in. This would cover hobbyist and casual programmers like me for whom Turbo is useless and Professional is prohibitively expensive.
It is a difficult choice to be sure.
The previous Turbo Delphi’s limitations were broken pretty quickly – and very easily. Fortunately, no one seemed to distribute their solution for avoiding the limitations.
However, that means we can’t be sure multiple people found the same loophole or if there are multiple loopholes that will need to be plugged.
I do know my solution took less than an hour to find and implement for component loading. Another hour got DLL experts back in, and less than an hour got me the command line compiler – before those who paid for legimate Turbo Delphi licenses in fact.
I also know that describing each for repeatability was remarkably simple. I did mention this to Nick, but he never showed any interest in finding out how so it could be discouraged in future.
If CG does release a Turbo Delphi with a free license that is locked down, they will definitely have to do a much better job – I doubt another run of locked down software that is easily broken will be treated as gently again.
I think the cheaper SKU is a much MUCH wiser course. I am thinking along the costs of Turbo Delphi 7 and Delphi 1 and 2 – something below the 500 dollar mark (preferably below the 300 dollar mark)
My opinion is, that the current Turbo edition should be:
- The previous version (by now: Delphi 2007)
- In core the professional SKU with some limitations:
* Only a very basic VCL (no Source, no DB-Kompos, only the very basic components)
* _strictly_ limited to non-commercial use (i.e. forced by digitally signing each compiled executable)
But extendable with 3rd party components (like JEDI’s, Zeos etc.).
The paid-for Turbo then is the normal previous Professional SKU for the price of like 150$ / 110 EUR (near to real-world conversion rat!). If you can prove that you’re an educational user (Student / Teacher) you get that for free or at least less than the half.
My personal opinion is, that if you can prove you’re going to school you should be able to get your hands on the current professional version (non-commercial licence!) _for free_ anyway.
I’m moderator of the largest german delphi community and we have a lot of scholars asking for newer versions. But a 12 or 14 year-old pupil just can’t afford 99 bucks. Eventually you will loose them to the MS Express products and cannot grow them up as an delphi developer. So edu must be free imho.
If you realistically desire to grow the base you need to set aside conflicts of interests and meet the challenges of Visual Studio Express. Simultaneous installs, no addon capabilities and a wide open license. Otherwise it will be a long and painful fade. The 2006 Turbos did everything except multiple installs. Did that model hurt or help sales? In the long run it can only help.
I just wanted to say one thing. If there would not be Delphi 3 – 7 (free edition!) in my technical university I would not be here today. I would probably ended up coding in MS Visual Studio.
Free version is a MUST and It won’t hurt CG sales at all. Why? Because anyone can download full hacked Delphi from the Internet.
So make a free version of Delphi, allow it for students and hobbysts. If not, Delphi is gone…
I believe a Personal edition of Delphi is a must for CodeGear. It may cost them some in sales to have it, but costs them more in the long run to not have it. To me, Personal means cheap ($150 USD or less), no source, and is very strictly non-commercial. I have never looked at the Delphi source, never seen the need, and frankly see it as wasted space on my hard drive. I think any edition without database access is useless. While some deride database coding, it is arguably the primary use of Delphi, and so must include this ability. Limit it to Blackfish and Paradox if you wish, but include the basics. I’m on the fence with allowing 3rd party component installs – it seems a reasonable restriction for a Personal edition, but some won’t try it for this reason.
There may be a happy compromise between no ThirdPartyComponents and unlimited. Allow a limited number of components to be loaded.
There are two variations, limit the number of TPCs loaded at one time
or limit the number of components overall.
@murphy – Maybe it’s easier if that is a separate version to the Turbo Delphi’s (something just below the Professional SKU maybe). The problem is that it begins to make their licensing options look rather like Microsoft’s typical offerings.
@jjb – I agree above CodeGear needing a fresh marketing approach. They haven’t really tried anything revolutionary for quite some time. Maybe they just know their customers but they do seem to be stuck in the rut of only really bothering to appeal to big enterprises.
@bgbennyboy – Absolutely agree. This is what I would like to see too. I would like to make it clear that I’m not opposed to paying a small amount if the product isn’t too heavily crippled in features.
@Xepol – Maybe someone should inform them that its better that people use a legitimate but free or low cost version than a cracked/pirated version.
@Sebastian – Thanks for posting. I’ve seen first hand people who would like to try Delphi but I have no *real option* (discounting the turbos) to offer them, it’s highly frustrating for Delphi Community Advocates.
@Spook Murphy – Absolutely, VS Express & Eclipse have made an entry level tool a minimum requirement for the market whether that makes the suits cry internally or not, it’s the reality.
@Dimitrij Kowalsky – I was the same, I credit my delphi interest with a free cover CD edition of Delphi (I think it was Delphi 3/4?)
@Jon Purvis – Exactly – Why remove some of Delphi’s greatest strengths (3rd Party VCL and DB Components) and then try to gain new developers without them? It just isn’t playing to your strengths!
@Brad W – An interesting idea. I’m not sure how many is a realistic limit nor how easily enforcible this plan is but it’s a reasonable compromise definitely!
It’s now October, and what came of the rhetoric ?
Well, Embarcadero has now simply pulled the plug on Turbo Delphi !!!
The previous Turbo links now go to 30 day trials of Delphi 2010, and you get some lame spin for free.
Seems they have no long term vision, and no desire to compete with Microsoft ?.
Still, Lazarus/FPC continues to improve, and I even saw a useful
looking PScripter, that is a Script Pascal.
PScripter should have good teaching applications – it is small, but not too crippled, and gives workable results from a single source file.
Wow Turbo Delphi is not anymore… Sad. But i have my copy at home
Sure some servers are still providing it for download afaik. You need to search in google.
cheers, murphy
Server copies ? – Sure, but the rub is you need an Auth-Code!! – and guess what
the answer to that will be : Here, have our 30 day trial, and sign here….
Is it possible that they pulled the plug for all personal and other older editions of Delphi and C++Builder a.k.a. all Personal things?
@jmg: That’s interesting, I didn’t realise that they’d pulled the actual downloads. I guess it is now official, there is no way for a new user to get into Delphi (assuming the 30 days trial isn’t enough to get you hooked). Sad Times indeed.
Maybe they’re pulling them in preparation of a new release?
@murphy: I could be wrong but the key request for Delphi 6 / 7 personal appears to have disappeared in the redesign of the free tools download page indicating that this is the case.
Oh dear! I have used Borland since the days of the tiny Borland Turbo C and then moved on to Delphi. I upgraded to Delphi 5 level which has served me well. I am now retired and programming for pleasure and stimulation is one of the ways I keep alert. I am happy to go on with Delphi 5 BUT I’ve just installed Windows 7 and the BDE doesnt work – so anyone know where I go next?
@Ron Etherington: If you’re not prepared to pay for D2010 standard then sadly you have no choice but to await a new version of Turbo Delphi or a Personal edition of Delphi. I’ve been saying for a long time that Codegear need something out asap but we’ll have to be even more patient with them!
@Ron Etherington: Interesting that BDE fails in Win7. Is that an install/license type fail, or a run-time fail ?
You could try Lazarus
http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/
I’ve been porting some of the nice examples at
http://www.delphiforfun.org/
and (mostly) they port easily, some need a few ‘rules’, but I have not yet hit any brick walls.
Code can usually be made to run in BOTH Delphi and Lazarus/FPC at the procedure level.