Re: [DOLPH] The future of Dolphin 2.1/98

[hidden email] (Andy Bower) wrote (abridged):
> On the flip side, to replace the idea of a completely free offering,
> we are intending to release a 30 day trial version of the Dolphin Value
> Edition (which is our entry level version 4 product). We believe
> that this, coupled with the low price ($69.95) of DVE will be
> sufficient to attract those people who have a genuine interesting
> in learning, or playing with, Smalltalk.

I'll just repeat my view that in order to properly evaluate a language
tool we have to see the executables it creates. Are they too large, to
slow to start up? Is the release process cumbersome or error-prone? Does
the stripping process mean the executable gets DNU messages not seen
during development? How do we debug them?

If the "free" trial version is time-limited, that's all the more reason
for including Lagoon (or similar) with it.

  Dave Harris, Nottingham, UK | "Weave a circle round him thrice,
      [hidden email]      |   And close your eyes with holy dread,
                              |  For he on honey dew hath fed
 http://www.bhresearch.co.uk/ |   And drunk the milk of Paradise."

Dave,

> I'll just repeat my view that in order to properly evaluate a language
> tool we have to see the executables it creates. Are they too large, to
> slow to start up? Is the release process cumbersome or error-prone? Does
> the stripping process mean the executable gets DNU messages not seen
> during development? How do we debug them?
>
> If the "free" trial version is time-limited, that's all the more reason
> for including Lagoon (or similar) with it.

To a certain extent I agree. We are looking at producing a trial of Dolphin
Pro too although this will appear at some time in the future.

Best Regards,

Andy Bower
Object Arts Ltd.
http://www.object-arts.com

"Not all addictions are bad for you"
http://www.object-arts.com/Addiction.htm

[hidden email] (Andy Bower) wrote (abridged):
> To a certain extent I agree. We are looking at producing a trial of
> Dolphin Pro too although this will appear at some time in the future.

Oh, good. I'll shut up then :-)


  Dave Harris, Nottingham, UK | "Weave a circle round him thrice,
      [hidden email]      |   And close your eyes with holy dread,
                              |  For he on honey dew hath fed
 http://www.bhresearch.co.uk/ |   And drunk the milk of Paradise."

"Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:97jdep$p8njb$[hidden email]...
> Panu,
>
> > > On the flip side, to replace the idea of a completely free offering,
we
> are
> > > intending to release a 30 day trial version of the Dolphin Value
Edition

Andy,
     How was 30 days decided on?  It took me a lot longer working with the
summer 98 edition to get up the courage to decide to leave C++ and go
'retro'.  Had my boss been more of a hands on manager, he might have made me
justify the decision technically and I would have needed even longer (at the
price level, it is more of a technical debate than a financial one).  Very
happy I did; now enjoying the Dolphin Professional environment.
    I can understand your desire to only support one code base.  Is there
anyway to cripple DVE sufficiently that the trial period could be longer or
re-newable?
    Finally, I have noticed a  number of new and diverse posters on
c.l.s.d.-- your market is growing.  This is good for you, but also the
users.  The Dolphin community is incredibly generous with their time.   I
would be interested in an informal survey of your paying customers on how
long they used a free version before they bought.  For me it was about 6
months. (Perhaps you already know this from download records).
     Thank you for producing the product.

--Ben Meyer

"ben meyer" <[hidden email]> writes:

> I would be interested in an informal survey of your paying customers
> on how long they used a free version before they bought.  For me it
> was about 6 months.

For me, I bought Dolphin Professional 4 before playing with it due to
the good comments on this newsgroup about it, and comments I'd heard
from other users on websites, etc. That and the price was low enough
for it to be not too much of a dent if I decided I didn't like it.

Chris.
--
http://www.double.co.nz/smalltalk

Ben Meyer asked:

> I
> would be interested in an informal survey of your paying customers on how
> long they used a free version before they bought.  For me it was about 6
> months.

About a day and half.

Installed it (from some PC magazine's cover-disk) on Saturday, bought a full
copy when I got to work (where my web connection was) on Monday morning.

On the other hand, I would *definitely* not have tried it at all if it had
been a time-limited version.  And -- since there is no other Smalltalk that
I've tried that I wouldn't just have said "what a load of crap" and
immediately uninstalled -- that would have meant that I'd never have got
into Smalltalk at all.  (That's not to say that the other versions *are*
crap, just what my first impression would have been.)

So, for me, the going-away of the free version is sad news.  That's not to
say that I can't see Andy's point, and, in truth, I can't think of anything
better to suggest.

    -- chris