Correspondent from New York
Let's see the double-speak:
there is double-digit growth.
In common language it means: many more developers forced to upgrade to get discounted prices. The upgrade by date for older versions of Delphi or C++ Builder is over. They are then forced to upgrade every year to get the latest offerings or no updates and bye-bye.
Delphi surpasses two million users.
Exactly how many users are there? Maybe the statement should be: There is a million education licenses (Reference: Software licensing from Embarcadero to Russian Education). Leave out a million, that would be around 300,000 users forced to upgrade every year for the past 3 years. (300,000 x 3).
At the bottom there is the text "three million users". So if you deduct two million, you have less than 10,000 customers divided evenly between RadPHP, Prism, DbArtisan and other Embarcadero products?
If was truly so many customers, Nevrona, AToZed, Steema, QuickReports, TotalQA, Raize, Scooter Software and other companies associated with Delphi would be very rich, or would you hear things like: Need to use Crippled version of Beyond Compare, Bundling crippled version of AQTime, crippled version of TeeChart, useless version of Nevrona Reports not to mention dissent from vendors, like Mr. Chad Hower who says the royalties were not enough to support AToZed and therefore, there was this big need to cripple IntraWeb.
Here's a counter-proposal that will make your correspondent believe there are two million users:
Bundle FULL version of Nevrona Reports with full source code, FULL version of Fast Report (instead of some stupid Delphi version), FULL version of Beyond Compare, FULL version of AQTime, FULL version of TeeChart, FULL version of TMS special controls and nothing crippled. Bundle FULL version of IntraWeb with full source code.
Browse to Indy team's website. Browse the Raize newsgroups or kbmMW or other newsgroups. Some of them look like less than 500 users or no users?
Which forum or blog or wiki is powered by IntraWeb? Which website uses RadPHP's framework?
"ultra-rich and ultra-fast"
Do you mean: Delphi is only used by 15% of the world who can afford Delphi and the 85% of the world cannot use it? For the term ultra-fast, one has to look at the SCIMARK on this blog.
If you use Visual Studio, sometimes compiling C# and C++ (release build) is faster than Delphi's compile-time.
"dramatically reduces coding-time"
Did anyone use Entity Framework with 2-way (database to code, code to database) and C# ORM layers? Why is BOLD not included? Which ORM layer supports both Nevrona, Fast Reports, DevExpress and third-party database layer in Delphi?
"create applications 5 times faster"
Do you mean: 10 times slower because TDataSet is not linked to a global data dictionary and you need to keep updating the DFM/Code because of database updates? What if the whole database design changes and need to re-do the whole application? Did anyone try doing this with FireBird/Interbase or MSSQL?
"low academic pricing"
The students in other colleges get Visual Studio Professional (not crippled) for free.
"As a result, thousands of ..."
Thousands of applications, like Mozilla FireFox, Interbase (Embarcadero's own database product), DBArtisan (Embarcadero's own database product) is not Developed using Delphi or C++ Builder.
"Young entrepreneurs..."
If there are 2 million Delphi users, the jobs market looks like it is not able to absorb 2 million Delphi users. If a person learns a skill, should there not be jobs available? Look around. "Russian Education Ministry" - did anyone check Russian job websites for Delphi jobs? What did they find? How many jobs are there for C++ and C# developers in Russia?
"and iOS"
Do you mean: Delphi exports to FreePascal to compile for iOS (no, really).
Let's see the double-speak:
there is double-digit growth.
In common language it means: many more developers forced to upgrade to get discounted prices. The upgrade by date for older versions of Delphi or C++ Builder is over. They are then forced to upgrade every year to get the latest offerings or no updates and bye-bye.
Delphi surpasses two million users.
Exactly how many users are there? Maybe the statement should be: There is a million education licenses (Reference: Software licensing from Embarcadero to Russian Education). Leave out a million, that would be around 300,000 users forced to upgrade every year for the past 3 years. (300,000 x 3).
At the bottom there is the text "three million users". So if you deduct two million, you have less than 10,000 customers divided evenly between RadPHP, Prism, DbArtisan and other Embarcadero products?
If was truly so many customers, Nevrona, AToZed, Steema, QuickReports, TotalQA, Raize, Scooter Software and other companies associated with Delphi would be very rich, or would you hear things like: Need to use Crippled version of Beyond Compare, Bundling crippled version of AQTime, crippled version of TeeChart, useless version of Nevrona Reports not to mention dissent from vendors, like Mr. Chad Hower who says the royalties were not enough to support AToZed and therefore, there was this big need to cripple IntraWeb.
Here's a counter-proposal that will make your correspondent believe there are two million users:
Bundle FULL version of Nevrona Reports with full source code, FULL version of Fast Report (instead of some stupid Delphi version), FULL version of Beyond Compare, FULL version of AQTime, FULL version of TeeChart, FULL version of TMS special controls and nothing crippled. Bundle FULL version of IntraWeb with full source code.
Browse to Indy team's website. Browse the Raize newsgroups or kbmMW or other newsgroups. Some of them look like less than 500 users or no users?
Which forum or blog or wiki is powered by IntraWeb? Which website uses RadPHP's framework?
"ultra-rich and ultra-fast"
Do you mean: Delphi is only used by 15% of the world who can afford Delphi and the 85% of the world cannot use it? For the term ultra-fast, one has to look at the SCIMARK on this blog.
If you use Visual Studio, sometimes compiling C# and C++ (release build) is faster than Delphi's compile-time.
"dramatically reduces coding-time"
Did anyone use Entity Framework with 2-way (database to code, code to database) and C# ORM layers? Why is BOLD not included? Which ORM layer supports both Nevrona, Fast Reports, DevExpress and third-party database layer in Delphi?
"create applications 5 times faster"
Do you mean: 10 times slower because TDataSet is not linked to a global data dictionary and you need to keep updating the DFM/Code because of database updates? What if the whole database design changes and need to re-do the whole application? Did anyone try doing this with FireBird/Interbase or MSSQL?
"low academic pricing"
The students in other colleges get Visual Studio Professional (not crippled) for free.
"As a result, thousands of ..."
Thousands of applications, like Mozilla FireFox, Interbase (Embarcadero's own database product), DBArtisan (Embarcadero's own database product) is not Developed using Delphi or C++ Builder.
"Young entrepreneurs..."
If there are 2 million Delphi users, the jobs market looks like it is not able to absorb 2 million Delphi users. If a person learns a skill, should there not be jobs available? Look around. "Russian Education Ministry" - did anyone check Russian job websites for Delphi jobs? What did they find? How many jobs are there for C++ and C# developers in Russia?
"and iOS"
Do you mean: Delphi exports to FreePascal to compile for iOS (no, really).
Posts
4 comments:
Mhhh...
At the times when EMBT was listed at the stock exchange in 2003 they had a Q1 result of about 21 Mio. Assuming 4 times ... is about 80.
Assuming they lost no customers ... In 2008 after the acquisition the revenue increased to 100Mio. So the number of 20Mio revenue for Codegear products makes sense.
If the Codegear divisions sales grew by 15% 3 times ... it is 30 Mio USD... That's a lot agreed. Divided by almost app 200 employees at a cost of 50k USD avg ... the business can be profitable.
So let's say license sales is 30 Mio diveded by 300 USD per year ... about 100k upgrades. Adjusting to reality - very likely 500 USD and 20 Mio - this is the number. 200 packs a day, very likely. Little more very likely. 40k packs a year. 40k developers per year. About 120k paying Delphi developers. At max. Matches TIOBE Index ... assuming 20 Mio developers ... (in the world)
Assume 10% of a number officially communicated by a tool vendor and you are there.
This is just a guess .. 100.000 active paying developers. A million never ... This is rule of thumb multiplied by wild guess...
Can be little more 140 to 170k developers paying ... after reestimate ... My model is very imprecise. Just a link form Wikipedia and a link to quarterly results from 2003/Q1.
The classification on LinkedIn says 200 to 500 employees. The number of employees on Wikipedia says 470 after merge. Assuming today almost the same number constant business. Little growing.
85% they simply cannot convince to upgrade. You say they cannot afford ... You are right - Delphi could be upgraded at USD 100 or 150 if the other 85% could be onboarded.
If there are arox 12 mil developers in the world (according to the answer given to Nick Hodges's question at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/453880/how-many-developers-are-there-in-the-world) and 2-3 mil of them code in Delphi how come the Delphi/Pascal TIOBE index being so low.
I am so pissed with the Borcadero lying to us.
The best way to scare away Delphi newcomers is lie to them from the very beginning - the official public announcements.
I wonder if all of those made up numbers are Mike Rozlog's or even worst - coming from the new person occupying his role?
Gad D Lord
>and 2-3 mil of them code in Delphi
>how come the Delphi/Pascal TIOBE
>index being so low.
I was wondering this too ...
Fact is that Delphi developers are not as socialized the way people in the mainstream technologies are. The reason is I think is
a) Age structure
b) Contracting or not
The 'Professionals' and contractors quit Delphi. This would have happened anyway.
But 2 Mio. developers assuming most of them would be Internet Visitors*) (people who just use social media for focused communication) and all of them would be at the age of > 40 would not lead to a degree of socialization in per-mill.
Thousand's vs. million developers.
*) Almost impossible. Take any crowd of people and it's 50/50.
My personal conclusion is - a hype is driven by professionals because they are simply more socialized or do not need to socialize, more or less those who run tiny companies, have product and no vision beyond their niche or bigger Enterprise ... in the middle is VS the Professionals.
TIOBE is better, to read a trend. TIOBE does not say something about the absolute number. It says something about the current potential.
I was asking myself - why SOX? I think 'stock exchange'. In this context this communication makes sense. I don't know, maybe former product managers hold 'shares' and expect to benefit form a relaunch of EMBT at the stock exchange ... or from being taken over.
Google Trends has to be considered carefully. Most technologies ABAP, Delphi, C# and .net follow the same trend the vendor's brand does. This is obviously a result from branding. So looking for 'Delphi programming' tells you how popular the Embarcadero or Borland brand is. Same is with Java and Sun and Java and Oracle. - No good indicator.
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