"Joe Demartino" <✉thanks.com> wrote in message news:✉forums.codegear.com...
> > Plus, that makes the assumption that giving info out harms sales in the > first place.
Rather simple to demonstrate really. You're thinking of buying Widget v10 right now. Unknown to you *yet* is that the next version will have feature-X which you are really going to want. So in 4 months Widget v11 is released and you immediately buy the upgrade.
Or... You're thinking of buying Widget v10 right now. But today you hear an announcement about feature-X in v11. While you'd really like to get v10 now, you decide you can carry on with v9 til v11 is released and only part with money then.
Happens *all the time*. This is one of the key reasons for creating the Software Assurance program - to get you to part with a little less money, but do so every year rather than only when a release comes out that has specific features you want. If enough people sign up for such subscription or similar programs, it would remove most if not all the need for secrecy from the customer standpoint (though there is still the issue of not giving your hand away to competitors).
> One could equally speculate > that by being overly secretive, they're driving sales away because > developers will want a sense of security about the future of the dev tool > they choose to invest in.
Again comes the need for balance. They need to release enough to let people know development is active, agreed.
> The thing to keep looking at is that Delphi went > from a main stream development tool to a very niche product over about 5 > years - while taking the current 'secretive' approach.
Nothing to do with that. First, compared to C/C++ and VB, Delphi has only ever just barely been considered a mainstream product, but has always had sufficient customers to be profitable and assure a next version (only thing that really matters). To the extent they lost any significant share is due to quality problems suffered under Borland mgmt, including a sales team that was actively told to *not* sell development tools and got no commission for doing so. Essentially Delphi continued making profits (and propping up Borland's ALM dreams) despite every attempt by them to marginalize and starve it! What's that say about whether developers were willing to shell out for it?
> Another thing to keep in mind... there's no mac or (active) linux delphi > compiler. So they wouldnt be harming sales of their mac and linux > compiler > if they released more info about them. If anything, they'd be keeping > people from jumping ship.
As in the first case, they'd be harming sales of D2010 *now* if enough info is released to cause customers to hold off buying till next release. Cross-compiling is a feature many current customers (as well as hopefully many new ones) will want.
> Also... Could it be that releases are just too frequent? A yearly release > is a pretty fast pace.
For most software, the majority of sales happen in the months immediately following a release (mostly upgrade sales) and drop from that point on (leveling to mostly new sales). So yearly is probably an optimal target to develop and release a reasonable set of features and improvements. Under a subscription plan, releasing smaller more frequent upgrades might actually be more optimal.
> One more commment - the concern seems to be for losing 'upgrades'. All > well > and good, but if they are so reliant on upgrades (or what I like to call, > milking their customers), perhaps its an indicator they arent forcusing > enough on reaching new customers.
Most software, after the first few versions that establish a customer base, rely on upgrades. The goal of growing one's customer base *means growing and upgrade base* by definition - the more successful the product, the *more* it makes from upgrades over new customers!
-- Wayne Niddery (TeamB)