The Business of Software

Codegear is currenlty offering a free trial of Delphi for PHP...  for an entire day...  Think this is a typo/mistake that will be fixed, or did they intend to do that?  Are there other products that offer such a short trial period?

http://www.codegear.com/Downloads/TrialandFreeVersions/Delphi/DelphiforPHP/tabid/250/Default.aspx

Oh well, I'm about half way through my evaluation period, and I think I'll have to pass.  My initial impression isn't wow, I need this.  It doesn't seem like total crap either, but I would need more time to really see if it could help me or not.

It says "1 day" in two different places, so I don't think it's a typo/mistake.

I've never heard of a 1 day trial for a computer program. It's ludicrous.

It is not a typo, it really is for just one day. 

Judging by the somewhat sparce comments from CodeGear about this, it appears to be intentional to do it this way during the 'promotional period' (which finishes at end of March) to give a taste of D4PHP.

Seriously silly IMHO.

> Seriously silly

That was an understatement if I've ever heard one. :)

>That was an understatement if I've ever heard one. :)

Possibly!

I am however trying not to be to pessimistic regarding what I think will be a great product.

From the demo's and presentations about it I think that this is a great first release and the future holds a lot of promise. 

This product line also heralds the kind of company that CodeGear are trying to re-invent (out of borlands shadow) themselves as.  The new and proposed product lines (PHP, Ruby etc) are a great move and show some real spirit and balls.

However, if you have a good thing, flaunt it.  This is IMO crippling D4PHP's promotion.

What I *think* about a product is not enough for me to spend my heard earned and very limited $$.  I need to *experience* it.  Test it.  Comparte its advanced features and abilities against my current ASP.NET offerings.  24 hours is not enough for that.

+0.02c

Funny how the microsoft trials are usually atleast 60 to 90 days and some as long as 180 days.

Makes one wonder....

I've tried it for one day.
Nothing to see here. Move on.

And this may be the worst demo video ever:
http://video.codegear.com/php/DBGridDelphiforPHP-ENGLISH/DBGridDelphiforPHP-ENGLISH.html

The 1 day trial thing by Codegear seems to me like latest in a series of marketing blunders that they're carrying over from Borland.

I don't know their rationale for the idiotic 1 day trial.  I have a guess, though. 

I think Codegear may be worried that their product is so amazing that if people had 10 or 20 or 30 days that trial users could write a quick app and deploy the source without having to buy the product.  (I'm not sure whether the trials of their compiler products generate only time-limited .exe's or not, if they do then this would fit with their fear over letting people generate interpreted code that can be run with no restrictions.)

The other thing I think is that they may be trying to fight against people using VMWare to do multiple installs of a trial product.  If it had 30 day trial some users might just decide to reinstall DforPHP in a new VM every 30 days.  By moving it to a 1 day trial Codegear hopes to make it enough of a hassle that people will just buy the damn thing.

Whatever the rationale the 1 day trial seems stupid and counterproductive to me.  It's not engratiating users with Codegear, and I'm pretty sure it's going to make it more likely that trial users will apply a crack to get rid of the trial limitation, then end up never purchasing (even when they would have ended up as happy purchasers if given a 30 day trial).

The thing with the trial period is that it is determined by the license file that they send you. Without the file, it just doesn't run.

They should have at least let the trial go until the promo period ends.

The original trial was only supposed to be for people that were part of an online conference.  It was cancelled, so they decided to release it to the public.  This is why it is one day.

"The original trial was only supposed to be for people that were part of an online conference."

I've seen that offered as explanation over in Codegear newsgroups.  How, exactly, though, is that supposed to explain a 1 day trial? Why would they not give people participating in online conference a 30 day trial?

"It was cancelled, so they decided to release it to the public."

The online conference (called 'Coderage") was not cancelled.  Even if it had been, and even if a 1 day trial had somehow made sense for conference participants, why did Codegear not switch trial to have 30 day limit before releasing to general public?  It should be trivial for them to change the trial period.

I also saw Michael Swindell of Codegear offer an explanation over in their newsgroups that

"the idea of the 1 day trial that you can d/l right now is to allow a quick 'check out' during the remainder of introductory pricing promo. It probably should just be called 'Quick Trial' or '24hr Trial' or something like that."

That just seems like another attempted explanation that, if you actually consider it, makes no sense.  Why should trial be 1 day during introductory pricing promo and longer later? 

Sadly, Codegear's continued inept marketing mistkaes leave me worrying for their future.

Here's how to get 2 days of trial :)
Go to http://codegear.com/Downloads/TrialandFreeVersions/Delphi/DelphiforPHP/tabid/250/Default.aspx Delphi for php download page page.
If you haven’t already got Delphi for php, get the product from: Downloads (keys where required).
After one day of trial expired, go to the same page, get a new license from: Keys Only (If you have a CD), and you will get another day of testing.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to get a new extra trial day somehow. A new one each day at least until I’ll get the license I payed for :)! (full story here http://huper.dynodas.com/2007/03/30/delphi-for-php-i-just-got-an-extra-day-trial-licence/ )

It now has a 14 day trial