Elevate hasn't released an update in 18 months and Tim doesn't reply to requests or suggestions.  The only traffic I see regularly is requests for subscription renewals.  But in the absense of actual support, I cannot justify that.

Too bad, it was a really good product.

Erick
EWB Programming Books and Nice Component Library
See my EWB BLOG posts, at:
http://www.erickengelke.com

Erick:

You have been such a proponent and helpful person, and contributor with your Nice components for EWB.

It is difficult hearing you arrive at this conclusion.....  There are probably only a handful of us holding on to hope.

But as I go into my purchase history, I can see Order # 15005 from Jan 2025 (renewed EWB), and Order # 15223 from Nov 2025 (renewed EDB) ... which leads me to conclude 219 sales.  I don't know the average sale value, but if most of these are small single developers like me - say $200-$300 per renewal - that means revenue around $45k - 70K (before expenses) - that is not a living in this day and age, but it is a good side line to add to ones income.

I would just like to see EWB IDE fully HTML 5 compatible and not tied to older IE restrictions.

Walter

Walter Matte wrote:
> You have been such a proponent and helpful person, and contributor with your Nice components for EWB.

Thanks.  

My toolkit was not about making money, it was about keeping me interested and organizing my additions.

I also tried to give a lot of educaitonal articles to help those who don't use my toolkit.  SOme of that was started to document it for myself.


> It is difficult hearing you arrive at this conclusion.....  There are probably only a handful of us holding on to hope.

I am at that point.  Not only I see a dearth of activity at Elevate and on the group, but I see a decline in humans reading my blog.  Either I'm not posting intresting stuff or the market has shrivelled to a crawl.   

I can't in good faith tell someone new to invest in this product when the IDE is based on IE, there is no support and the community is drying up, there's no future in that.

> I can see Order # 15005 from Jan 2025 (renewed EWB), and Order # 15223 from Nov 2025 (renewed EDB) ... which leads me to conclude 219 sales.

Elevate goes for $159 US renewal.  That would peg the income at between $35k to $70k depending on how many people follow through, and how many products they renew, so it could be less.  

That's pre-expenses.  You can't earn a living on that.

I've had numerous commercial projects over the years.  But there is a life cycle to all software where it goes through different phases.   

 - initial - a good idea
 repeat
     - expansion of product
     - wider adoption
     - enthusiasm
     - re-invention and rejuvenation
 until one of the above stops
 repeat
      - contraction of installed base
      - stagnant product
      - "cost savings"
      - lost enthusiasm out there
  until inevitable death

We saw Netware, Caldera (Sys V Unix) and many other products publically go through it.  Novell was the first 1 Billion dollar software company, where is it now.   WordPerfect was the #1 word processor.   Corel Draw owned the drawing market - now it competes with InkScape.  AutoCad was untouchable, now it's niche.  Delphi was a huge hit in the 90's, well, they've managed to linger around largely due to legacy - even though it's a mostly great product.

You cannot economize your way to prosperity, it requires growth.

Today's companies who compete in developer spaces have a few things in common:
 - they have a community edition - free to hobbyists and small players who then become evangalists and adopters
 - they have a paid pro model - with good support, source code, extra tiers of service
 - they have a community supporting each other (EWB used to have that)

You can look at any of the JavaScript libraries, Ubuntu, MySQL or MariaDB or whatever you want.  You will.see the same pattern - leveraging volunteers by buying them with free community edition, and charging significantly more for commercial entities.

Unless you are Microsoft with their SQL or Oracle, but even they give away the compilers for free now.

Elevate, at $150 renewal, is like where Embarcadero was 30 years ago ( $99 for Borland C compiler 1.0).   Now they charge about $1400 for Delphi Enterprise, and more for Architect, but they try to lure people with free commmunity edition to get their numbers up.

That means 1 Enterprise license is close to 10 current EWB subscriptions, or 1 Archiect is worth about 20.   And there's a lot less effort supporting 10x or 20x contracts, it's 1/10 to 1/20th fewer paper work trails or support quesitons.

I *would* renew EWB at Embarcadero rates if it had that future.  But right now I'm being asked to add money to the abyss of support.  COme on, the IDE is based on outdated technology, and my quesitons and concerns go unanswered, what am I paying for.

Pay to merely play is dead.  But pay to succeed with advanced features is still big.  There are so many tools out there that get you hooked and then loop you in to paying for enhanced versions or commercial distribution rights.

EWB is tehcnically in the league of being a transformational product, but a business philosphy baed on 1985's strategies don't cut it in 2025, and if there are no philosphical changes, it will be dead.

Erick
EWB Programming Books and Nice Component Library
See my EWB BLOG posts, at:
http://www.erickengelke.com

Walter Matte wrote:
> You have been such a proponent and helpful person, and contributor with your Nice components for EWB.

> It is difficult hearing you arrive at this conclusion.....  There are probably only a handful of us holding on to hope.

I agree with Walter.  You have been a tremendous help Erick.

erickengelke wrote:
> Today's companies who compete in developer spaces have a few things in common:
- they have a community edition - free to hobbyists and small players who then become evangalists and adopters

Having a community edition sounds like a great idea!  I wonder if Tim would let us help him (I am a Delphi programmer)  I can see a product with just the transpiler from Object Pascal to html/javascript with the interface manager like he developed.  It doesn't need the server or built-in browser.  

I run my own server and find having the browser built into the ide complicates development.  I keep the browsers separate.

Remote debugging would be nice but I can using the debugging in the browsers.  I don't know how the community would feel about that.

Best regards,
Allen

Allen Hunt wrote:
erickengelke wrote:
>> Today's companies who compete in developer spaces have a few things in common:
- they have a community edition - free to hobbyists and small players who then become evangalists and adopters

> Having a community edition sounds like a great idea!  I wonder if Tim would let us help him (I am a Delphi programmer)  I can see a product with just the transpiler from Object Pascal to html/javascript with the interface manager like he developed.  It doesn't need the server or built-in browser.  

A couple of thoughts.

There are a few major assets:
 - compiler - which is similar to but different from FreePascal
 - library - which is very well thought out
 - server technology - based on V8 - but many of us don't use it
 - database technologies
 - IDE - graphical layout tool, editor and built-in server + odds and ends

and maybe others I haven't thought of.

He already has a standalone compiler: ewbcc.  But it's a lot harder to do screen placement without a tool like the IDE.

The IDE lowers the bar on programmers.requirements, and is very handy for workflow and generating screen layouts.   It would improve adoption if the IDE were included, but I wouldn't complain if it were just the ewbcc and library, someone would write an Editor.

Probably the biggest hurdle for most is people having problems with certificates.  That's something the community can and has answered.

> Remote debugging would be nice but I can using the debugging in the browsers.  I don't know how the community would feel about that.

Adding source level debugging (ie. ObjectPascal source in the browser) and breakpoints would be pretty easy, maybe a day's effort IF one had access to the compiler source code and my old blog article showing how to do it.

Debugging is a nice thing to have, bordering on necessary feature to compete in the marketplace in this world of checklist comparisions.

Erick
EWB Programming Books and Nice Component Library
See my EWB BLOG posts, at:
http://www.erickengelke.com

erickengelke wrote:

> Adding source level debugging (ie. ObjectPascal source in the browser) and breakpoints would be pretty easy, maybe a day's effort IF one had access to the compiler source code and my old blog article showing how to do it.


I agree with everything that you've had to say.  I don't have the latest version of Delphi.  Is your complaint that EWB is still using IE (TWebBrowser component) instead of the latest TEdgeBrowser (if that is what is it)?  This seems like an easy fix.

I saw your blogged post Source Map Debugging... prototype https://erickengelke.com/h/posts/post11/.  Is that what you want integrated?

Best regards,
Allen

Allen Hunt wrote:

erickengelke wrote:

>> Adding source level debugging (ie. ObjectPascal source in the browser) and breakpoints would be pretty easy, maybe a day's effort IF one had access to the compiler source code and my old blog article showing how to do it.


> I agree with everything that you've had to say.  I don't have the latest version of Delphi.  Is your complaint that EWB is still using IE (TWebBrowser component) instead of the latest TEdgeBrowser (if that is what is it)?  This seems like an easy fix.

Yes, that's one concern, one of many.  A lot of things don't work in IE, and it's frankly several years deprecated.


> I saw your blogged post Source Map Debugging... prototype https://erickengelke.com/h/posts/post11/.  Is that what you want integrated?

Sure.  One doesn't have to use my implementation, but yes source level debugging would be excellent.

Erick
EWB Programming Books and Nice Component Library
See my EWB BLOG posts, at:
http://www.erickengelke.com

I'm not sure order numbers work that way. I have an invoice from Thu, Dec. 12, 2024 which is 14995. My next order was on Thu, Jan 30. 2025. That would mean I was the only sale for almost two months??? That doesn't seem right, but I don't know.

Also, my Jan 30 2025 invoice is 14996 but you have 15005 in Jan. 2025. (What date?).

Those were my EDB and EWB subscription renewals, $159 each.

In any case, Tim has said this isn't a lucrative market anymore and he can't support his family with these products, so I'm not expecting things to get better.


Walter Matte wrote:

Erick:

You have been such a proponent and helpful person, and contributor with your Nice components for EWB.

It is difficult hearing you arrive at this conclusion.....  There are probably only a handful of us holding on to hope.

But as I go into my purchase history, I can see Order # 15005 from Jan 2025 (renewed EWB), and Order # 15223 from Nov 2025 (renewed EDB) ... which leads me to conclude 219 sales.  I don't know the average sale value, but if most of these are small single developers like me - say $200-$300 per renewal - that means revenue around $45k - 70K (before expenses) - that is not a living in this day and age, but it is a good side line to add to ones income.

I would just like to see EWB IDE fully HTML 5 compatible and not tied to older IE restrictions.

Walter

I wasn't clear:

My Thur, Dec. 12 2024 order was invoice 014995;
My Thur, Jan. 30 2025 order was invoice 014996.




Alan Questell wrote:

I'm not sure order numbers work that way. I have an invoice from Thu, Dec. 12, 2024 which is 14995. My next order was on Thu, Jan 30. 2025. That would mean I was the only sale for almost two months??? That doesn't seem right, but I don't know.

Also, my Jan 30 2025 invoice is 14996 but you have 15005 in Jan. 2025. (What date?).

Those were my EDB and EWB subscription renewals, $159 each.

In any case, Tim has said this isn't a lucrative market anymore and he can't support his family with these products, so I'm not expecting things to get better.


Walter Matte wrote:

Erick:

You have been such a proponent and helpful person, and contributor with your Nice components for EWB.

It is difficult hearing you arrive at this conclusion.....  There are probably only a handful of us holding on to hope.

But as I go into my purchase history, I can see Order # 15005 from Jan 2025 (renewed EWB), and Order # 15223 from Nov 2025 (renewed EDB) ... which leads me to conclude 219 sales.  I don't know the average sale value, but if most of these are small single developers like me - say $200-$300 per renewal - that means revenue around $45k - 70K (before expenses) - that is not a living in this day and age, but it is a good side line to add to ones income.

I would just like to see EWB IDE fully HTML 5 compatible and not tied to older IE restrictions.

Walter

Alan

Here are my invoices since 2020 - I have EDB, EDB DAC, EWB, DBISAM (which I have stopped) .....

Mon, Mar 16 2020   013310      $158.00   $0.00
Mon, Jun 22 2020   013408      $159.00   $0.00
Thu, Nov 5 2020   013580      $258.00   $0.00
Thu, Jan 14 2021   013671      $159.00   $0.00
Tue, Mar 16 2021   013784      $158.00   $0.00
Mon, Nov 8 2021   014019      $258.00   $0.00
Fri, Jan 14 2022   014101      $159.00   $0.00
Thu, Mar 17 2022   014183      $158.00   $0.00
Tue, Nov 8 2022   014378      $258.00   $0.00
Sat, Jan 14 2023   014446      $159.00   $0.00
Fri, Mar 17 2023   014510      $158.00   $0.00
Wed, Nov 8 2023   014665      $258.00   $0.00
Thu, Jan 4 2024   014742      $159.00   $0.00
Mon, Nov 11 2024   014978      $258.00   $0.00
Sat, Jan 4 2025   015005      $159.00   $0.00
Tue, Nov 11 2025   015223      $258.00   $0.00

Walter