This summer and the whole year are indeed strange. Our lives have changed in many ways, and many of those changes are here to stay. The importance of technology and the need to build reliable solutions fast is growing. Embarcadero is succeeding due to the strength of its products and its remarkable community. We have a lot in store for this summer. Let’s keep building together!
Table of Contents
10.4 Quality Updates
Big releases have many dependencies, and despite robust testing, 10.4 has had its share of quality issues. We have released several patches that fix the major issues. Version 10.4.1, coming in September, will provide additional quality improvements and minor enhancements. The patches are much more visible now through improvements in GetIt.
10.4 Upgrade Program
Over two years ago we discontinued our upgrade SKU. With 10.4, the demand for upgrades has rapidly increased, and many customers are frustrated that there is not a cheaper upgrade path. So we brought back our upgrade program, allowing customers to upgrade from previous versions at a discounted price. The deadline for this program is September 25. There will be communications via email with details, but I encourage you to reach out to your reseller or Embarcadero Account Manager to get your offer fast.
Summer Bonus Packs and Promotions
To make 10.4 even more appealing, we collaborated with many of our Technology Partners to create an attractive, one-time Enterprise Upgrade Pack. The combined value of packages included in this pack is over $13,000. In addition, we continue to enhance our GetIt packages for ALL update subscription customers, which contain over $1,000 of free software, including IDE components, Styles, FMX Linux, connectivity components, and more. We plan to keep upgrading the Upgrade Packs throughout the summer, which now is more easily managed through GetIt, so keep checking for additional benefits. These will be automatically available for eligible purchases throughout the summer.
Desktop UX Summit
RAD Studio is the best platform for creating native Windows applications. We believe that the desktop space has been unfairly overlooked over the years and has a lot to offer. The huge trend toward the web has in some ways oversimplified UX experiences due to limitations of the browser. The type of mobile-first applications further contributed to oversimplification. Yet native desktop continues to provide many advantages when it comes to more complex and high-performance applications. This is obvious in gaming, but new trends in digitization may push desktop performance advantages and new UX needs to the forefront. Working from home boosted the use of collaborative apps, and any more complex apps are indeed native. The explosion of AI will also increase the number of simultaneous signals that will need to be presented to a UX, and browser interfaces will continue to be very limited in their ability to handle these.
We see an opportunity for a resurgence in desktop usage. Cross-platform will continue to be key, but maybe the use cases will start with the best medium, and supplemental experiences, such as mobile, will be treated as such. Trying to build an ERP or a trading app while thinking mobile-first could be grossly undeserving of productivity and constrain the imagination regarding what could be possible. You work with IDEs all the time, and while new tools such as Visual Code are advancing, a true high-performance Web IDE is still highly impractical. We feel that it is appropriate for us to spearhead a Desktop UX Summit that could continue to expand and include many more partners and companies and drive new thinking and innovation.
Accelerating Open Source Projects
We have increased our commitment to open source projects, where it makes sense. I want to highlight a couple that we are sponsoring this summer. We have created a new branch of Dev C++, which is one of the most popular editors for C++ and is built with Delphi. Our MVP Eli M. has been leading this effort as a great example that uses 10.4 to modernize a “legacy” application. This summer we will also open source the code base of Bold, which is a sort of low code solution for RAD Studio. We have a passionate group of Delphi community experts who will take that effort forward. Finally, we are collaborating with the creator of the popular Python editor PyScripter, Kiriakos Vlahos, to bring access to popular Python libraries to RAD Studio. I am especially excited about this effort, as Python is a natural complement to Delphi. One of the key advantages of Python is the plethora of libraries, especially around analytics and data management, and we are making it easier for our customers to use them!
C++Builder
We just posted a C++ road map and discussion of C++Builder directions and features. Normally we simply post a list of features we plan, but this time we discuss our strategy and both what we’ve done recently and our future plans in light of that strategy, which we believe will be helpful to you. We also discuss the results of answers given by you, our customers, to a key survey and what we’re doing in response. There’s a lot here about Windows and quality.
Other Updates
We have a number of other important updates, including:
- Waiving Penalties on Late Renewals due to COVID-19: We understand that COVID-19 has created a lot of hardship for individuals and businesses. Our Renewals Team is running a number of programs to make it easier for expired customers to get back on maintenance plans. Please contact our resellers or Embarcadero renewals directly.
- Update Blog Platform: Less than two years ago we changed our blogging platform to standardize with other Idera-owned brands. We feel that the uniqueness in our audience and richness of content is not well supported by this platform, and we plan to change again to a more user-friendly one with better multilanguage support and more flexible authoring capabilities.
- Discontinue Proprietary Forum: Our approach to forums is outdated. We feel that our community will be better served by open third-party forums, either dedicated ones, such as Delphi PRAXiS, or general ones, such as Stack Overflow. This creates much wider visibility and access to community support. Embarcadero official support will be provided through our Support Portal for Update Subscription customers.
- Maintenance of Standalone FireDAC Discontinued: The SKU has been merged with our Enterprise edition. Please connect with our Sales Team to discuss options to upgrade your Professional maintenance and FireDAC maintenance. (Update: This is in reference to the C/S Add-on Pack that was previously available for Professional licenses.)
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Thanks for making Bold open source. This is an evidence that Embarcadero follow new influences. Open source is hot today. Many big companies publish parts of their source as open. Result is faster development and more happy customers. It is a win-win situation for everyone involved!
I will be really disappointed if Embarcadero shut the community forum down. It provides them with an immediate source of feedback on how their products are performing and it provides users with direct contact with other (often more informed) users who can offer tips / solutions. The historic information available from all such postings builds up to something of value. It would be crazy to shut it down. How having an active source of feedback from users can be described as being “outdated” is beyond me.
Having the immediate feedback is important, and the information is of value, but we want to find a better platform for it. This especially becomes an issue on the international and multi-language stage. We’ve looked around and found a large number of other communities that are doing a much better job then then platform we are providing, so instead of competing with them we are instead looking at ways to better support them. I’m sure you will see myself and other’s from Embarcadero in those communities. While Atanas doesn’t post there, he frequently checks in on these communities to see how things are going.
We are building a list of communities here:
https://blogs.embarcadero.com/community/
Atanas Popov,
Look fondly at emerging countries. Please!!!
The dollar is very high and our currencies are devalued.
Care and an appropriate pricing policy are required for each market.
I am from Brazil and here it is not possible to renew, unfortunately due to the cost I will have to continue with the version I have.
Hugs!
We are always trying to work with our partners in other regions to find prices that fit the local economy. With the big promo we are running right now you might talk to your local sales rep again and see if you can find a price that works for you.
Good luck!
Hi Jim McKeeth,
I appreciate your answer in regards to my question.
Unfortunately, representation in Brazil does not treat consumers with the due respect that we understand we would deserve.
Sorry for the sincerity and use this comment in this post to express this, but if the communication channels I have take me to the branch in Brazil, how to report this to the head office (USA / Canada)?
The license renewal price is costing + -50% of the purchase price of a new one, I thank you again for your commitment to say that “always trying to work with our partners in other regions to find prices that fit the local economy”.
But I believe that this needed to be audited more carefully, it is an excellent tool and we in Brazil are suffering due to the price.
Good luck! (=
Discontinue Proprietary Forum. I don’t like this. I was down voted off of Stack Overflow. They just don’t like there. They hate it if the same question is asked twice just because you couldn’t find the answer using search. I guess there will be no place to ask questions anymore for me anyway.
My Stack Overflow user number is 255, so I’ve been on there for a long time. It can certainly be tricky to ask questions in the “right way” and I even get it wrong sometimes (which is frustrating). There are a lot of other communities we looking to work with that do a much better job then our existing forums. You can see a partial list here:
https://blogs.embarcadero.com/community/
I will be really disappointed if Embarcadero shut the community forum down. It provides them with an immediate source of feedback on how their products are performing and it provides users with direct contact with other (often more informed) users who can offer tips / solutions. The historic information available from all such postings builds up to something of value. It would be crazy to shut it down.
And I am not the only one who thinks this….
https://community.idera.com/developer-tools/general-development/f/welcome-mat-2/73148/is-this-forum-being-discontinued/97123#97123
I’m quite annoyed about FireDAC SKU not being available to Pro users anymore! You are forcing people to go elsewhere or to upgrade onto more expensive products. Surely this is not fair trading standard practice? Also, on another point, database access is sort of a commodity feature these days compared to the 80’s and 90’s. Every other language supports database access.
I also think it is a shame that your forums are being shutdown.
FireDAC for local databases will remain in Professional, same as it always has. The only thing that is going away from the professional edition is the client/server and multi-tier related database support.
Thanks Jim, I have been a subscriber of the FireDAC standalone with my Pro license. However, that means as someone that has an app that connects to a postgres database, I am being forced to upgrade or switch to something like UniDAC…
I agree with Conrad, this is an unfortunate move. I would guess that a good number of Delphi users do -not- write programs for “enterprise”, i.e., many clients attaching to servers over a network or Internet, but still need something beyond the server being on the same machine. These “small shops”, who helped get Dephi to where it is, are being tossed aside or forced to buy a version for which they have no real use and worse, cannot justify the expense of moving to the top tier version. I’ve bought my last subscription renewal, not out of spite or thumbing my nose, but simply because I can no longer justify the expense – or risk – of future upgrades that would likely further cripple the FireDAC upon which I’ve relied.