Delphi for Win32 - Part 1

In these multi-part posts about the newly released Delphi for Win32, I'll be blogging about my ordering, installation and usage experiences.

Part 1 (this one you're reading), is about the new ESD version that is available from CodeGear starting with Delphi for Win32.

So, now you have an ESD (Electronic Software Delivery?), meaning that, in theory and using CodeGear's own words, you get "Instant gratification".

I'm a big fan of ESDs: ever since there were internet purchases I've been doing them and all over these years, I've easily made over 100 such purchases. The big advantage of an ESD is to allow you to skip all that lengthy process of duplicating the CDs/DVDs and distributing them all over the globe, so, in theory, it's a nice idea.

Now let me talk a bit about CodeGear's first ESD: Delphi for Win32.

Having attended the CodeRage virtual conference last week, I was caught by surprise on Friday, the closing day, that CodeGear had started to ship Delphi for Win32. So, time to grab my credit card and go check their site... Hmm... There's no such thing as Portugal on their listing, so I'll have to try Spain instead.

Cuting a looong story short, let me just say that I did fight for a few hours trying to find a CodeGear online shop/partner/whatever that would allow me to have that "instant gratification". It turns out that I was expecting too much for two main reasons:

1) In these days of e-commerce and EEC, they block sales from their resellers to other countries, maybe it's something from Borland age and has to do with some business areas but still incomprehensible in these global days we're living;

2) The other reason I was expecting too much was because it wasn't actually official until next Monday, so, Friday was not the release date as I initially thought.

That much I learned after "bugging" DavidI and Michael Swindell.
Having learned that I waited until next Monday to be contacted, as promised by CodeGear. And, in fact, I was: first by a Portuguese retailer, then by a Spanish distributor telling me they had instructed that Portuguese retailer to get in touch with me.

And so they did: after answering their initial request as to what product I was interested in, I waited a few more hours. Late, near business day end, they contacted me again with pricing (there was an issue with using a special CodeRage attendant discount), and, after they told me how to buy the "ESD", I made a wire transfer and mailed them back. I had been told that, from the moment I placed my order, it would have taken 12 hours to receive the "ESD" (gosh: internet is sooo slow!), but 16 hours are gone now and still no code in my mail... :(

[EDIT: It turns out, from their answer just now, that it's 12 "business hours"; considering that they sent me the wire transfer data at the end of yesterday's business day, and even though I made the transfer right away and with 40 minutes to spare, they only picked up my order process today! So, if it's 12 "business hours", this means that ESD for Portugal = 3 days from start to finish... And I thought the year was 2007!!]

Meanwhile, bugging Michael a bit more, I managed to start the Download/Install procedure: I'm yet to get past that stage where I have to enter the yet to be received key, but at least I've now allowed the ESD installer to download the 600 MB of pre-reqs. (More on that on my next post!)

Final notes:

1) For their first ESD experience, I've read that it isn't going that bad, at least in "Civilized" countries for which they have online stores and allow that "instant gratification"; there were a few issues over the weekend but since it was not even supposed to be working 'til Monday, that's no big deal.

2) They *do* need to sort things out for the remaining countries: buying an ESD by using FAX order forms and/or wire transfers is not the way ESDs were meant to be! My suggestion: until local retailers are capable of providing that "instant gratification" experience, allow other retailers to at least sell the ESDs for those countries. If the local retailers don't want to loose on those customers, then they will catch up.

Unless they sort this out, some developers will be 1st class customers with "instant gratification", while others will have to wait, and wait, and wait...

3) CodeGear support was impressive. They have gone to all the lengths to have the right people talk to me and allow me to place the order. It's a bit slow process in Portugal, unfortunately, but I hope that sometime later today I'll be completing the install.

So, stay tuned for more comments on Delphi for Win32...