So, after all my hemming and hawing over the Delphi Starter Edition, I decide to go ahead and just take advantage of the RAD Studio XE Professional Upgrade under the May 31 amnesty due to an upcoming big project for which I just did a (successful, I might add) presentation to a customer. I had pretty much decided to go ahead and splurge for it for a number of reasons, but I needed a clincher, and this project was it.

So, I dig up my "final notice of upgrade offer email", click the link, and add the upgrade to the cart for $499 plus the $35 "media kit" (why I have to pay more for that I don't know, but that's only a minor quibble). As I am digging out my credit card, I get hit with a bombshell: the total price was NOT $534, as I expected, but $953!

Surely I must have clicked something twice or other, so I cleared the cart and tried again. Nope, still $953. Then I see it:

1 Support and Maintenance for RAD Studio XE $419.00

So I go "Okay.. WTF is that?". After doing a couple of unsuccessful searches on the Embarcadero site, Google finds the RAD Studio XE FAQ page for me where I find this little gem:

"What is Support and Maintenance for RAD Studio?

Support and Maintenance can be purchased at the time you purchase your RAD Studio product or upgrade. The support and maintenance agreement gives you a year of upgrades (including major and minor upgrades) and a specified number of support incidents. See the Support dropdown menu item of our web site for additional information.

Why is it important to buy Support and Maintenance for RAD Studio?

The Delphi Prism portion of RAD Studio may have more frequent feature upgrades than the rest of RAD Studio. Only users with active maintenance agreements have access to the new feature upgrades."

Immediately my quizzical confusion turns to consternation, then shortly after to anger as the realization of what was happening hit me.

I'm buying a product with no support or upgrades/updates, UNLESS I basically pay almost double the price I was told I had to pay from the product screen. They slip this little dealie in on the order page without ANY warning.

So, here I am, sitting here with my credit card out, a partly-filled order, on the last night of the special deal trying to decide if my purchase is even worth bothering to continue.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am all for a company getting properly paid for support, and I know new shinies cost money to add. THAT SAID, almost everyone in the world+dog that makes development tools INCLUDES that in the price, usually for at least the first year. Support incidents are included. Bugfix updates are included, minor (and even major new features), like the 64-bit compiler, which don't end up as "next year's version" are included. So what I am apparently paying for with that $499(-cum-$899) price are some bits to put on my hard drive for twiddling. That's all.

..and Embarcadero wonders why their market share is dwindling, even to the point of having to constantly spam old customers with upgrade offers to drive sales, then pull the ol' bait-and-switch "would you like the extended warranty with that, sir?" Best Buy Guy tactic.

I almost fell for it. Almost.