Marco Tech Blog

February 16, 2009

Embarcadero All-Access

Embarcadero (owner of the CodeGear brand) is about to launch a subscription-based licensing deal.

posted by marcocantu @ 2:15PM | 26 Comments [0 Pending]

Embarcadero All-Access 

Wow, out of an act of desperation, the sales 
department came up with this uninventive idea.   This 
is a plan that Autodesk (the makers of AutoCAD) did 8 
years ago.  It was an attempt to establish recurring 
income since new purchases had dwindled.  When it was 
first implemented, it was met with harsh criticism, 
and did not dissipate from the users minds for 
years.  A good economy helped that. To get those 
yearly incomes, it migrated a lot of users to other 
products.  And unfortunately for them, since users 
could “opt out”, it’s really not working well for 
them today.  I know CodeGear is still going to sell 
their products the other way as well.  But if they 
want to get sales, do “something” for it.  Here’s the 
problem I have with this plan.

1. Does this plan have mass appeal?  
Nope.  How many people want to pay extra per year, 
keep in mind $2200+ is Bronze.  I’m dying to know 
what Gold/Platinum is going to cost.  And what do you 
get?  A lot of access to a lot of products that most 
people won’t even use.  I use Delphi; I don’t need 
the other 5 programming languages.  Database tools, 
they are a dime a dozen.

2. Is this a plan that works with the current 
economic situation? 
Nope.  Really it makes Embarcadero look like the Car 
Manufactures’ and the Banks on Capitol Hill.  If you 
are not from the US, that was not a compliment. 
Essentually still out-of-touch.

3. Was anything new added to the value of the 
products?
Nope. If anything, it’s a devaluation of the product 
lines.  Kind of putting them in a big barrel and 
saying all you can grab for one outrageous price.

Now, I don’t want to be a “ Nay-Sayer” and not have 
any ideas. God knows the world is full of them. 
Embarcadero obviously are having bad sales from the 
2009 products.  And with the economic situation, 
that’s completely understandable, and I do not fault 
them for that.  So, here are a few ideas I think that 
could stimulate sales.

1. 4 updates per year (PS, simple patches, not full 
installs).  Each provides some new stupendous 
functionality.  That way interest is kept up, and 
maintained all year long.  Once I saw the D2009 
feature matrix, I gave up and I am now waiting for 
D2010.  I’m a lost sale for the whole year.  With 
quarterly announcements, the excitement or tease is 
maintained, until the user just can’t take it 
anymore.  I have been going to Torry’s for 12 years, 
every day.  All due to anticipation of what new 
product is going to be posted.

2. The new features have to have mass broad appeal.  
I don’t know who is in charge of the ideas department 
over there, but the ideas are pretty weak.  So, here 
I will give you a couple...

  a. A built-in Code Obfuscation at compile time, so 
it does not need to be done as a process after the 
executable is created.  And don’t do some limited 
half-hearted interface, like some of the other new 
ideas when they come out of CodeGear.

  b. Migration tools from Release to Release.  My 
god, I hate the updating process.  How about a  
better package Manager, with a database interface for 
managing who sold it to us, passwords, logins, 
installation procedures.  This one would really be 
easy to implement.

  c. A serious editor interface for editing code, 
like what DevExpress did with CodeRush Xpress for 
Visual Studio.  Quit waiting around for the 3rd party 
vendors to do it correctly.  They’re not.

  d. A better Project Manager.  That has more depth.  
The one on the Welcome Page is just OK.  It could be 
a lot deeper and more usable.

3. And lastly, show me that you are trying to earn 
your money.  Jungo (who makes driver development 
tools from Israel), wants me to pay them $1500 a year 
maintenance.  And when they called for their update 
money this year, I asked them if they got Delphi 2007 
working (which they said last year was on their road 
map, we all know about roadmaps and what they really 
mean) they said “Nope”, without any explanation.  So, 
I said “Nope”, but I sure as hell gave them my 
explanation.  Now, am I spending money on software 
upgrades in these times? YES, with the companies who 
earned it.  Adobe with CS4 earned it.  So they got 
paid.  AlphaSkins.com who charges me $50/year, and 
adds new functionality twice a month, got paid (best 
value in my 1000 components, I purchased or 
downloaded).  And a lot of other 3rd party vendors 
got paid as well.  But did Autodesk?  Nope.  Did 
Jungo? Nope.   Did CodeGear? A big nope.   CodeGear 
will tell you they earned it.  I know I already heard 
it, Unicode, Generics, Ribbons, new build 
capabilities.   OK, for those who needed Unicode, I 
know it was a good feature.  But the others, I would 
put them “MAYBE” in the quarterly tease list.

Comment by Brett Graffin [] on February 16, 18:23

Embarcadero All-Access 

I think you're underestimating what is required to
produce an update that "provides some new stupendous
functionality". For that matter, I'm not sure there
are enough stupendous ideas to even scale out over time.

I would agree that quarterly updates would be an
interesting idea but I'd rather see it in the form of
bug fixes. I find it interesting that <a
href="http://andy.jgknet.de/blog/">Andy</a> can
provide bug fixes sans source code that CodeGear can't
or won't provide.

I also agree that the subscription idea is not going
to work well as proposed. My company is certainly not
going to invest $2500 per developer per year to obtain
a bunch of tools we don't use. It's cheaper to just
buy the updates to Delphi as needed. I think it could
work IF they adopted a model more in keeping with MS
and Citrix. In those cases, if I purchase product X, I
can subscribe to the product for 30% per year to
maintain my rights to updates.

Finally, I still have to wonder why CodeGear doesn't
pickup the FreePascal compiler as their back-end
compiler. FP already compiles for 6 different
processor architectures and every major OS (and some
not so major). Why are they reinventing the wheel?
Pickup FP, extended it to the same point D2009 is at
and voila. I don't buy Delphi for its compiler. I buy
Delphi for its IDE and libraries. By my reckoning,
that provides the support for multi-OS AND 64-bit that
everyone is desperately waiting on.

m

Comment by Marshall Fryman [http://ruminatedrumblings.blogspot.com] on February 16, 20:04

Embarcadero All-Access 

 Ok, I'll add my two cents: "Stupdendous
functionality", I agree with m: just fix the bugs and
I'll be a Happy, recurring, paying customer!
Quarterly updates with a *little* new functionality
and a whole lot of bug fixes - THAT would have me
hanging on the edge with anticipation. I invested in
Software Assurance so I always get the latest and
greatest new version and, as long as CodeGear doesn't
mess it up too badly, I'll always renew. As for this
All-Embarcadero thing, eh, it's nice but if I want a
database tool, I'll bloody well WRITE one - I AM a
developer after all and if I want a new toy I can
BUILD it with the Really Cool Gadget I keep getting
new versions of - DELPHI! I can see non-developers
needing a database tool but let's face it, most DB's
come with a nice tool to manage the database and as
for optimization, great for a Fortune 500 company -
the folks I work for aren't even on the radar and
their database would not see any great improvement
from all the goodies offered by Embarcadero - sorry
guys but I just don't NEED your tools. I DO need
Delphi, however and I need it to WORK! So give me
quarterly bug fixes and neat new stuff once a year (or
so - I would have NO problem with an 18 month delivery
cycle but I'm guessing that would kill your income
cycles...<sigh>).
The idea of picking up the FP compiler, not a bad idea
if you can make it work - I would still like to see a
compiler that lives in a NATIVE Linux environment from
CodeGear but I won't be holding my breath...

Comment by Fred Weller on February 17, 00:49

Embarcadero All-Access 

 I agree CodeGear should look into using the FP
compiler -- look at what Apple does with the GNU C
compiler -- they've learnt not to try and write their
own; much better to contribute to a rock solid Open
Source effort and add what you want (Objective C in
Apple's case).  CodeGear would still have the
VCL/frameworks to develop and maintain (much like
Apple has to develop and maintain their own
frameworks).  Everyone wins this way.

Comment by Richard King [] on February 17, 01:24

Embarcadero All-Access 

It's like Christmas, the retailers all year bank on 
it.  And when it's a bad Christmas, then they are 
going to have a bad year.  And when CodeGear has a 
good Christmas about every 2-3 years, then coming up 
with ideas like subscriptions is understandable.  
Break up the feature set over quarters and keep 
introducing them. They can be fixes at the same time. 
That keeps it interesting. Also, I think you 
overestimate stupendous, I think there is a lot of 
stupendous ideas that would not be hard to implement. 
I'm sure if I spent a whole day on it (1 day) I could 
come up with 20.  That's good for 3-5 years.  

We agree, the subscription plan is not going to work 
at their pricing scheme.  It only works for large 
corporations, and we know how much money they are 
spending right now.  CodeGear wants recurring income.  
I don't have a problem with that, a product 
subscription for Delphi or whatever product at 
$800/year, I would do. As long as there we're 
sizable/stupendous updates. In my Jungo example, they 
want $1500/year and absolutely will do nothing for it.  
It's amazing to me.  Now, D2007 was a sizable update, 
D2009 was not, especially when you are coming from 
D2007. 

Or, they can just do what they keep doing and only get 
most users updating every 2-3 years.  I used to be a 
big supporter of Delphi.  I am not now, it's just a 
tool.  It needs those STUPENDOUS updates for it to 
become that product that I used to really admire.

Comment by Brett Graffin [] on February 17, 01:28

Embarcadero All-Access 

For those of you who are absolutely happy with paying 
year after year and all you need is bugs to get fixed, 
CodeGear does not have to satisfy you.  Your already 
there.  I'm talking for the people who aren't happy 
with the updates.  The ones who don't pay year after 
year. The money that CodeGear misses out on and 
probably needs. Your bucks are locked in, you should 
call Jungo, you are their kind of customer.  

Now, how are you going to get the unsatisfied users to 
be more loyal.  Here let me be in sales for a minute 
and try my pitch using the just bug fixes idea.  

"To all past customers of Delphi who do not update on 
a regular basis, have we got the release for you.  
This time and this release only, we went back and 
fixed all of our bugs.  All you need to do to get a 
copy is to pay $1300.00."  What do you think???

Sorry, I can't even sell myself.  CodeGear don't fool 
yourselves in thinking all you got to do is just keep 
the bugs fixed, and a few new features each release, 
and the other half is going to jump on board with the 
updates.  There are serious STUPENDOUS things that can 
be done, to make the work required to create a project 
less time consuming.

Comment by Brett Graffin [] on February 17, 02:01

Embarcadero All-Access 

To all commenters,

come on people, after so many years developers have 
been asking for a "MSDN-like" subscription, I 
appreciate the opportunity. I'm pretty sure you can 
keep buying individual Delphi licenses, as you used 
to. 

But in case you are interested in a couple of database 
management tools on top of your IDE, having a single 
yearly license is quite a good idea. Provided it has a 
comparable price, of course.

I mean, it was quite obvious a deal was coming, 
otherwise Embarcadero buying CodeGear would have been 
much less interesting. 

In any case, after we all know more (tomorrow, it 
seems) we'll open up to any sort comment...

Comment by Marco Cantù [http://www.marcocantu.com] on February 17, 10:33

Embarcadero All-Access 

1) This subscription model seems more aimed at 
throwing db tools at developers than viceversa. 
Developers would benefit more from something like 
MSDN subscriptions - on DVDs. I guess running Delphi 
or JBuilder from a web connection won't work very well
 - how do you install 3rd party libraries?
I too agree that support subscription and real 
product maintenance beyond the actual six months 
would be welcome.
2) The FP compiler is not yet on par with Delphi. 
It's multiplatform, true, but just a multiplatform 
compiler doesn't make a multiplatform dev tool. And 
performance and code size may be more important than 
multiplatform for some developers. Moreover the GPL 
nature of FP doesn't help much - CodeGear would just 
help a competitor that gives their product away for 
free. Same old "free Delphi" department. 
3) Obfuscation? Why native code should be obfuscated? 
What the impact on code size and performance?
4) Apple. They doesn't make development tools. They 
sell expensive hardware. They are just saving on 
tools development to maximize revenues - could 
CodeGear do it? Again, there could be GPL issues.  
Anyway I'd prefer a GCC backend than a FP one - much 
more poweful.

Comment by Luigi D .Sandon [http://www.sandon.it] on February 17, 10:40

Embarcadero All-Access 

 Greg Keller has a somehwat blurry video 
demonstrating the virtualised applications in the new 
All-Access programme.

http://metafrequency.blogspot.com/2009/02/you-saw-it-
here-first-embarcadero-all.html

Comment by Steve Cooney on February 17, 22:31

Embarcadero All-Access 

I sure regrets spending a 10 pack licenses of D2007 
Enterprise and left without any service pack.  I 
don't want new features, just want having my product 
working as expected; but for CodeGear, bug fixes act 
as new features.  

I simply refuse to buy the new D2009 version since 
I'm afraid it will be (again) a one-shot deal.  But 
Delphi is such a great language...  

New version of a product every years (and for which 
you have to pay every year) is like laughing out 
loud right in front of developers.  It's a big big 
joke: it's RAD, but SAD...

Comment by Rej Cloutier on February 17, 22:53

Embarcadero All-Access 

So far the consensus is, fix bugs pay CodeGear. If 
that's all they got to do, then it is in CodeGear's 
best interest to keep bugs alive. Please CodeGear, try 
coming out with a D2010 version that has a limited set 
of new features. I need to save the money in 2009. I 
got no problem updating every 3rd release. 

I watched the video from Greg Keller, and now I'm even 
more unimpressed with this ALL-ACCESS plan. Too 
expensive, for a lot of non-needed capabilities. MSDN 
was only $795.00 per year when I was on it. It was a 
lot of CD’s that included a lot of stuff that I did 
not need. 

I'm only going to speculate here, I'm sure I will know 
more tomorrow, but I wonder if you are not licensed to 
use Delphi the following year, if you decide to not 
renew. Essentially, you go from owning the software to 
renting it. That's going to be the first thing I check 
into when it is announced tomorrow.

Comment by Brett Graffin [] on February 18, 00:01

Embarcadero All-Access 

Some great dialog here folks and I've pointed the exec
team and product folks from the CG side to review. 

What's evident is your collective passion, and that's
cool to see. What I want to stress is that we are
truly, really, trying to do lots of things for you...

1) We're growing R & D EVERYWHERE...and that means
directly back into your trusted tools since acquiring
them from Borland. We're into it folks. We believe in
the CG tools and are injecting money and visibility
back into them for you. I don't know how else to say
it but I agree that releasing quality product will be
the demonstration of that. 

2) We truly think All-Access by providing all of what
you need when you need it at attractive prices is
compelling for individuals as well as large teams. We
are not abandoning the ability for our sales guys to
sell product a-la-carte: By all means, buy Delphi
individually if you wish! It'll be there for you like
always, but spending your time to write your own
database tool(s)....why? We've got fantastic
ones...award winning and market leading ones...and can
offer them to you at great prices. Why would you waste
your/your company's time and productivity? 

3) Please be informed that this is not a subscription.
All-Access when purchased is perpetual! We don't 'take
away' the tool chest once your membership expires. The
tools are yours! These are your assets to capitalize,
depreciate etc as you see fit. 

I am available any time to speak to these issues and
simply want you to know that on many levels,
Embarcadero is invested in ensuring the tools you've
trusted for years are having tons injected into
them...from business/marketing programs like
All-Access through to new R & D efforts on these great
products. 

Best, 

Greg
Chief Evangelist
Embarcadero
http://metafrequency.blogspot.com

Comment by Greg Keller [http://metafrequency.blogspot.com] on February 18, 01:37

Embarcadero All-Access 

OK.  Marco's title has in it "subscription-based 
licensing deal".  You say it is perpetual (I going to 
assume as long as you keep paying).  If it's not a 
subscription, then are you saying there is no yearly 
fee?  Lastly, if I am on the plan and I download C++ 
to my machine, and I terminate my subscription or 
membership or whatever it is called, I can continue to 
use it, correct?  But, what happens if I move to 
another computer, I'm going to assume I cannot re-
authorize it again, unless I am back in the club. I 
appreciate your well written explanation.  I still 
can't see how individuals are going to buy into this.  
Maybe the company will blow my socks off tomorrow. And 
finally put me in my place.

Comment by Brett Graffin [] on February 18, 02:39

Embarcadero All-Access 

I guess the pricing has always seemed to much for 
me.  I would love to build Windows apps with Delphi 
(I did start with Delphi 1.0 but went to .NET in 
2004), but unless I had the work to justify the cost 
I will have to stay away...

Comment by Steve [http://www.burch-swm.com] on February 18, 03:57

Embarcadero All-Access 

Marco, you said don't speculate about pricing until 
you see it. Wow, you are right there's no way I would 
have “dreamed” that the Platinum Plan was 
$8,250.00/per year. My best guess was maybe 3K.  Oh by 
the way, it's a yearly subscription. May I quote Gregg 
Keller, “3) Please be informed that this is not a 
subscription.
“.  How Gregg Keeler can make the statement that 
developers will buy into this befuddles me. I 
currently use Enterprise D2007. It cost me $1300 to 
upgrade from D2005. Under the plan that I would fall 
under (Silver), I would now have to pay $4250.00/per 
year. Wow, like I said in an earlier posting, "Out-of-
Touch". I'm sorry, but I am going to have to say, and 
yes I reviewed the videos posted for on their site for 
today, only a transplanted guy from sales from the 
year 1999 could have come up with this idea. 
Now, I'm looking into my crystal ball, I’m going to 
predict the future of this great idea for Embarcadero.  
And, I'm going to do it for FREE, since I think they 
need a break. This idea is going to flop, and flop 
big. Hum, the best ideas coming from the group who 
CodeGear now belongs to, is figure out how to 
repackage the same stuff, but at a completely 
OUTRAGEOUS price. 
There's a saying in the US, and it might not work in 
other countries, so you will have to excuse me when I 
say it. Embarcadero and CodeGear have finally "Jumped 
the Shark". 
Under this plan, all (and there was not much left) 
respect is lost. It's was presented with no shame, and 
it was presented as if it were some great idea for our 
benefit. Next time guys, spend a little time and money 
on market research.

Comment by Brett Graffin [] on February 18, 16:48

Embarcadero All-Access 

Brett about pricing:
- In Platinum you get DatabaseGear products having 
that price tag...
- Silver has an upgrade price (if you own a past 
version of Delphi Enterprise) that saves you about 
35%. It costs the same of a RAD Studio upgrade with 
maintenance... so you almost get 15 free products!
- The price you quote is not per year. Renewal prices 
are much lower than first year.
This is because it is a sort-of-subscription but you 
end up owning a license if you let it expire (unlike 
MSDN).
I think you are really over-reacting. This is an 
optional plan for buying tools, not the only way. I 
know companies who own Delphi plus a couple of 
database toosl and will SAVE money with this plan.

Comment by Marco Cantù [http://www.marcocantu.com] on February 18, 17:14

Embarcadero All-Access 

I know Marco, you have to side with the Embarcadero 
guys. No more needs to be said about that.  

It's a dumb plan.  There's no way you can filter this 
idea into anything that any developer would want to 
use. I look at these ideas and decisions when 
determining if there still is a future with this 
company.  This is just another failed attempt by them, 
that demonstrates that this company is not one that I 
should use when developing future products.  I'm an 
outspoken person, think about all the ones who don't 
say anything.  They may not move to other products, 
but probably are holding off any decisions to move 
forward. I always felt that the company strength came 
from people moving forward with each release. And for 
15 years I got behind them to do just that.  I feel 
they are just getting to be another big US Corporate 
entity, with ideas that are not developer driven but 
profit driven.  You don't need to post this if you 
don't want to.

Comment by Brett Graffin [] on February 18, 17:35

Embarcadero All-Access 

> It cost me $1300 to upgrade from D2005. Under the 
> plan that I would fall under (Silver), I would now 
> have to pay $4250.00/per year. Wow, like I said in 
> an earlier posting, "Out-of-Touch".

Thats not correct. The upgrade price for you since 
you already own Delphi Enterprise would be $2950, 
that includes the 1st yr membership which provides 
support, maintenance, and other services such as 
InstantOn. The membership renewals there after would 
be $1700yr. The list price of all the products 
included is over $20k. Clearly you wouldn't use all 
of them, but the total value is about 10x with price 
between 2x and 3x the price of buying or upgrading a 
single product. If you use two or more tool then it's 
a great value.

It is not a subscription in that all products 
activated are licensed perpetually, so if you do not 
renew, you can continue to run and reinstall the 
products that you've activated during the membership 
term. 

Of course you can always continue to purchase 
products individually as you always have if you only 
require a single product. 

Comment by Embarcadero on February 18, 21:38

Embarcadero All-Access 

Brett,
You are not a market. You are one coder deep in the 
trenches. There are other enviroments and situations 
besides yours -- i.e. there is a bigger picture. I 
think your predictions are way off.
Cheers,
The King

Comment by king of all access on February 18, 22:26

Embarcadero All-Access 

Hey King of All Access,

What's the matter, no name. why don't you use 
anonymous, at least you don't look like an Embarcadero 
employee.  P.S.  There are tens of thousands of 
developers using Delphi, from what I can guess.  I 
heard 3 million from CodeGear on one posting from year 
ago.  But, I will go with 10's of thousands.  Let's 
see what percentage of the market jumps on this really 
good idea of a plan.   

P.S. 
Cheers,
The Market

Comment by Brett Graffin [] on February 19, 01:24

Embarcadero All-Access 

Brett, 

No offense, but you're coming off as ignorant and
uninformed.  I think you saw "subscription" and blew a
gasket.  From all of the indications I've gotten from
Embarcadero this is NOT a subscription, but a
membership.  You are not left out to dry after a year.
 You own the products you purchased.  You just won't
get the new versions if you don't renew your
membership.  Renewing is also a fraction of the
orginal cost.  

This looks like a steal if you need a couple of their
DB tools.  If you are looking at, say Delphi, but want
Rapid SQL, DBArtisan or ER/Studio for database
development/management/modeling, any of those tools
combined will cost more than the lower levels of
All-Access.

If you read Mr. Keller's post, you can still buy the
products a la carte.

I think you need to step away.  Take a couple deep
breaths and talk to Embarcadero to see what it's all
about.

Regards,
Joe

Comment by Joe the Developer on February 19, 03:19

Embarcadero All-Access 

 Yesterday I was able to meet with David I and Sven 
Wetmore from Embarcadero.   They spent a few hours 
with us at our office and then later at a user group 
meeting.   I was able to sit down and look at the 
product offering of All-Access.    I also was able 
to get quotes from a previous sales call.   

Currently our budgets have been lowered.   I can not 
add anything that was not already planned for, 
unless I drop somthing else.   But when that 
condition changes I will seriously consider the 
offering.   The prices appeared to be targeted at 
people who have 2-3 upper end products, and want 
access to everything else.   

We have competitive products on the database side 
but all-access may cause us to drop these products 
and switch (depending on analysis of the features in 
RapidSQL and ER/Studio)

I know there are 3 licensing models available.
1.  Per Seat
2.  Per Named User
3.  Concurrent 

Comment by Robert Love on February 19, 03:36

Embarcadero All-Access 

Phil Rathle Embarcadero, Director of Product 
Management, gives an overview of All Access in a 
seven minute video linked from the Embarcadero 
Developer Network web site - 
http://edn.embarcadero.com

The video is in the lower right hand corner of the 
web page.

Comment by David Intersimone "David I" [http://blogs.embarcadero.com/davidi] on February 19, 08:28

Embarcadero All-Access 

Personally I think the All Access model is great. 
Though it does have one slight downside which I'll 
discuss after the good points.

I have no ties to Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero and I 
can say whatever I like about them.

If you just want Delphi for Win32 it's probably not 
for you, so don't get it! Too much price difference.

If you want RAD Studio then it's going to cost a 
little bit more if you want all access, so you need 
to ask yourself it you will actually use any of the 
additional products. If you are going to use even one 
additional product then you're going to be about even 
on price.

Remember the perpetual licences for any products you 
register will not expire, you do not actually need to 
renew after the first year.

The truly brilliant thing is that you can also get 
the next version of the product if it's released 
while your all access pass is valid.

So lets say you had just bought RAD Studio 2009 
Enterprise, and then RAD Studio 2010 came out. With 
the All Access pass you're entitled to it with no 
extra cost, with the solo RAD Studio purchase you 
need to pay for the upgrade, taking the total cost to 
almost the same as the all access pass.

Using RAD Studio + just 1 addition product makes the 
all access pass around the same value and risk free 
regarding any new versions for the next year (ever 
wondered if you should get the current version or 
wait for the next one which is due out in 3 months? 
All-Access you can upgrade now and then upgrade later 
too). 2 additional products and you have a saving.

The one downside I think Embarcadero should consider 
addressing is an "upgrade to all access" for existing 
users. The above comparisons are based on new user 
licences, which make the all access pass a very 
viable and attactive option. The upgrade from an old 
product options for individual products however offer 
considerable savings, which should be available to 
existing customers rather than having to effectively 
start over with a new licence purchase.

In my opinion you should be able to reduce the price 
of moving to an all access pass by the same 
reductions you would recieve if you were to upgrade 
all your current products (with a possible cap to 
prevent it being free for anyone with lots of 
products). So a RAD Studio 2009 user should be able 
to save the price difference of a new licence and an 
upgrade to the 2010 version for that product. If they 
also have an existing DBArtisan licence they should 
be able to save the price difference there too. This 
means they're paying the same amount for an all 
access upgrade as they would for a normal upgrade and 
any extra cost for all access can be better compared 
against the additional products they're receiving. 
Yes, they're getting alot more product for their 
cash, but anything they don't already have is 
obviously not critical to their business so is just 
paying for something they don't use, which no one 
wants to do, but they might like to use a few of the 
extra products.

As an example £1999 for a new RAD Studio Enterprise 
licence + £1071 for a new JBuilder licence = £3070. 
So you would of course want to save money and get a 
bunch of extra products and free upgrades for a year 
by getting all access silver for £3036.

But for an upgrader they're comparing £1285 for RAD 
Studio + £530 for Jbuilder upgrade (£1815) against 
£3036 again. Which is not nearly as attractive. If 
they could save the same £714 on the RAD Studio 
upgrade and £535 on JBuilder (£1249) they save with 
upgrades on an All Access Upgrade, bringing the price 
down to £1787, it would save them money again and 
therefore they would of course get the cheaper All 
Access pass!

Assuming they get hooked on a few more products once 
they try them the only viable option will be all 
access, it will save them money every time.

As it stands though the All access pass is really 
only attractive to new users, which as can be seen 
makes many existing users feel unloved. It's kind of 
like you're in an open relationship Borland. Sure you 
accept the fact that they get it on with other 
people. But it hurts when you watch them giving all 
their attention to finding a new partner and the only 
time they give you any love it's brief and lackluster.

Comment by Nicholas Hurd on October 22, 17:41

Embarcadero All-Access 

Nicholas,

there is indeed an Upgrade price for existing users to 
move to All Access, although you'll need a high level 
SKU to get the higher levels of AllAccess.

I agree with most of your remarks, though.

Comment by Marco Cantu [http://www.marcocantu.com] on October 22, 17:46

Embarcadero All-Access 

Indeed, my apologies about that Marco, I had read so 
much blog I skipped/skimmed the last few. Which 
included the one from Embarcadero that said they had 
upgrade prices.

I read up and saw these afterwards and decided to 
come back and post a "whoops" comment, you're so on 
the ball you got there first though :)

In which case the only major failing is that they do 
not currently publish the fact there is an upgrade 
path in the online store. If users could see it was 
more viable they may well purchase it, even if the 
pricing isn't fixed for an upgrade version just 
knowing it was possible but that you needed to call 
would be great.

Comment by Nicholas Hurd on October 22, 18:00