Wayne Niddery wrote:

> 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).

This cannot be emphasised more. SA, was, IMO, marketed as more of a
"gimmick" rather than for its true intent. "Buy Delphi with SA, and you
get the next version for free!" The problem was that it was not (and is
not) really set up that way. The intent is that once you "jump on the
SA train" it is easier to remain on the train than to get off and then
jump back on. It isn't about "getting the next version for free," but
rather as long as you remain on the train, you benefit from any
release, regardless of when they happen.


If we could somehow transition to this model without tanking our
current revenue (The SA $$ has to be amortized over the SA period),
we'd do it in a heartbeat. The only way that can really happen is that
if sufficient customers signed up and remained on the program, year
after year. If that could ever happen (I'm not holding my breath), we
could begin to offer significantly more perks to the SA folks, like
early access to pre-releases, bug-fix updates are released to SA folks
a week or so before the non-SA folks. I'm just thinking on the fly
here. We could also do true "feature updates" since we're already
amortizing the revenue. If this could ever happen, then we'd be able to
easily quell the hue-and-cry from folks who paid for SA and then
complained that they "got nothing for that extra $$$" because we'd
always be delivering *something* to the large SA crowd through out the
year.


-- 
Allen Bauer
Embarcadero Chief Scientist
http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer