Way back when .Net was first released this was my thinking too. I admit I felt pretty superior about it at the time. However it’s not actually the case. First, looking at my server logs on my site people seem to have .Net installed, it’s becoming pretty pervasive now. So you don’t have to bundle it. Second, most installers offer you the ability to do a check and download during install if .Net is not there. Third you can bundle it into your setup if you wish to do so.

To be honest, this was the single biggest factor holding me back originally. From what I’ve studied throught the last twelve months though the biggest resistance seems to be coming from the corporate world to .Net and not the consumer. As my market is Pro-Sumer I really cant’ see that much of an issue. Given that Acid Pro, for example, needs .Net for database support. Sonar is a 4 Gig download and so on. Now I do appreciate a lot of folks are limited by virtue of not having broadband connections still. In this instance a CD is the only other option.

Most of my clients would be in the states. Most will be relatively technical or at least technical enough to run an installer. I refuse to support Win 9x under any circumstances, Win 2K only reluctantly (and there’s not a lot of consumers running it, it would seem). XP will need it and MS have shrunk the .Net 3 download now, though I’m sticking to .Net 2.0 for now. Vista users are completely unaffected. Given the price of the software I really don’t think it’s going to be a problem in terms of sales. At a starting price of $99 people who waver over how many bytes they are downloading (i.e have to download the runtime) aren’t likely to be spending money on the application in the first place. In many respects my market positioning has changed this year. I’m less interested in the bottom end and more interested in the upper end. Building a Rolls-Royce, IMHO, is more lucrative than building a Kia and a heck of a lot more satisfying.

I use Delphi for all of my desktop apps and one thing that completely puts me off going to .NET is that my apps would require the framework to be bundled with my downloads. For me a native Win32 Delphi app just works when people download a light weight app and install it (bearing in mind most people out there are still using XP) - if I started to have .NET framework issues it could kill my business overnight. I don’t know if you have considered this or how you intend to address it.

Gary

Actually, the switch actually does the opposite. I will be able to support OS’ in the Win 9X range technically, which Delphi 2007 can do (not sure about Delphi 2009 though). Thing is I don’t want to support those platforms as there are significant RAM issues etc with multimedia app’s, not to mention graphic support and rendering. However, haven’t tried it yet, I should be able to use some code on Nix and OS X via MONO which is something I’ll be exploring later down the track.

I love Pascal code, don’t get me wrong, and after all these years I type it like I’m typing English - maybe better - but language is something one gets used to and C# is very similar syntactically with a few C conventions thrown in and of course one has to get used to it being case sensitive.

What are you losing with the switch? Cross platform ease, anything major like that?

OK. That’s a fair comment.

I believe there’s a difference though. The component vendors support the product through making it attractive to developers using the product. In fact the third party market has been one of Delphi’s strongest attributes.

The people buying many of these *visual* components are mISV’s and ISV’s. Corporate developers, from my experience at least, pay less attention to the visual aspect of design (they have less reason to do so as function out weighs look and feel in general). The move, as I see it, is designed to attract the corporate market and as such make the product more attractive to them (remembering that corporate dev’s usually need to sign off on additional purchases and justify them). By effectively gutting the ISV component vendors Codegear effectively gut themselves through diminishing the appeal of the product to ISV’s (component vendors) and in so doing diminish evangelists for their product . I know a couple of component vendors who are, as I am, looking at a platform switch - kind of the last straw. I love Delphi, have done since V1 1995. But since Inprise butchered it nothing much seems to have changed. I may be wrong, but I just don’t see any evidence that Embarcardo are changing the corporate focus.

The utterly ludicrous thing is that the market they seem to be trying to cater for, and this goes right back to Inprise days, is the very market that embraces Microsoft technology exclusively for a variety of reasons and shows little interest in Delphi.

I was dismayed to see Delphi 2009, to my mind, ripped the guts out of the third-party component vendor market by incorporating many of the add-ons marketed by those guys as part of the core VCL.

That’s what I mean, in part, by a focus on the corporate ’s and disregard for the mISV and ISV.

Which seems to imply that Delphi shouldn’t add components to the core when those components are supplied by 3rd party mISVs, because Delphi needs to not put those companies out of business.

But you then say:

But I’m in business to make money first – not for evangelism or arguably misplaced loyalty.

I see what Delphi’s doing as the same principle you speak of here; they’re improving their core product to make money. I don’t really see why they would feel any need to tiptoe around component vendors, if they can offer an integrated solution and gain more customers. People buy for features, not 3rd party components.

Am I reading you incorrectly, or is this a double standard for small ISVs vs. big companies?

A suggestion, if you ever get to read this, go back to school and study English and spelling. Currently your’s is worse than your programming skills. Another tip - lose the GeoCities website.