Is Embarcadero serious about its pricing model

1

I thought I would get up with the times and renew my Delphi subscription and check out Kai. Long saga that I will skip here.

But then I discovered that Kai works on 12.2 and so I asked for a quote for just Kai.

Nope, it turns out that you must have a paid subscription for Delphi to then be able to use Kai.

So I have to pay for the latest edition, plus a year’s maintenance, so that I can then pay for Kai to install on my old version of Delphi.

That’s a bit like asking for a roof rack for your car just to be told that you actually have to pay for a new car, and a year’s maintenance, so that you can then return and buy roof racks for your existing car.

Except that analogy is flawed because then I would have two cars, but with this I still only have 1 Delphi.

I dropped my original subscription because I got sick of receiving “30% off” offers for Delphi and then being told it was only for new subscriptions. Is there any other company that floods their mailing list of customers with discount offers that they can never accept? I was literally receiving reminders to renew my subscription with no discount at the same time as multiple offers to save 30%.

Or who have a pricing structure based off technology infrastructures from the last century?

And to top it all off, I asked AI if there was any benefit for me to upgrade to the latest edition and even AI is smart enough to say it’s not worth the stress.

So, who is actually responsible for the pricing at Embarcadero?

And are they wearing a “Make Delphi Great Again” cap?

2

I too have to think each year if I should renew or go to Free Pascal. The pricing is ridiculous.

3

Not to contradict your reasonable frustration … but … you would have

  • two Delphi’s (12.2, 13.2), and
  • a year’s update subscription, and
  • presumably another new Delphi within the next year timeframe

I did take note of the active subscription requirement when Kai was first announced.

You wouldn’t expect that to be the likely case if it came from an independent 3rd party company.

(Which is probably a good prompt to edit and post the presentation David Millington gave to us in Perth for CodeBot recently)

4

@Paul_McGee , I’m enjoying the conversation and happily chewing the fat!

I would have 2 versions but there is only 1 Delphi developer in the company and 13.2 offers no tangible benefit.

BUT if it had included Kai then that’s a big benefit and I would upgrade.

But it isn’t included. It’s an add-on. It’s an add-on that is supported by my current version of Delphi.

It would appear that Embarcadero are demanding the best of both worlds for themselves - forcing users to subscribe to get the latest edition AND paying for an add-on.

Mmmm. Codebot looks good. Any chance of having a sneak peak at the presentation?

It is also cheaper than an annual subscription just to then also pay for Kai’s subscription.

5

I will … cough get it up … as they say.