[Falkon1313]

Agreed. And it was partly how they ignored or snubbed two+ generations of rising developers, hobbyists, etc.

No kid or hobbyist or person just learning was spending $1400+ on a compiler. Especially as the number of open-source languages and tools were increasing rapidly by the day, and Community Editions of professional tools were being released.

Sure they were going for the Enterprise market money, but people there buy based on what they're familiar with and can easily hire lots of people who are familiar to work with it.

Last I looked they do have a community edition of Delphi now, but that was slamming the barn door long after the horses had all ran far away and the barn had mostly collapsed.