Howdy Matt!
Long time not spoken, I hope everything is okay on your side.
As you have noticed from the subject of this email, there is a major change for X-Setup. But please let me explain:
First of all, we will start this year with a public 6.5 BETA Program.
Secondly, we will have a new website (
http://www.x-setup.net/ - already online, but not filled with content...) which will look much better than the old xteq.com. Plus, we have a new member (Eric) that will take care of the website and also user support, so we will have a much better communication with our customers. Plus, Eric will allow me to concentrate more on the coding which will result in more frequent updates to X-Setup.
So, these are the good news, now to the bad news: We will convert X-Setup to X-Setup Pro (XSP) which means SHAREWARE
! However, before you flame me, please let me explain.
Since I need to do more for my "real" job, I can not spend so much time on XSP as I would like. So, I need to utilize the time remaining for coding on XSP instead of Support questions, FAQ, Helpfile and things like this. The other members of the Xteq team also have "real" Jobs that does not allow them to participate more for XSP. Please do not get me
wrong: They all do a lot for XSP, but all the items I just mentioned need a real big amount of time which neither of us can provide.
We have waited really a long time for a new member that could take care of this, but after the DotCom Crises, nobody seems to be interested in Freeware anymore. Of course, everybody wants Freeware but literally nobody want to do the, well, "doing". We have tried this with our Delphi site for more than one year, but the "X-Setup Community" does not really work as we have expected it.
We currently have around five (!) 3rd party plug-in developers that regularly provide plugins and two-three people that help others with problems on the Delphiforums.com site. Given how many downloads XSP still has, that's not really much and thus we need help.
So I started to search for somebody who would be willing to do this and I come up with Eric, CEO of dotec.de. I know him quite a long time and already done some projects with him. As I informed him, he was right away highly interested in this projects so we formed, if you want to call it this way, an alliance. Xteq Systems will provide XSP and dotec will provide the helpfile, the website, the forum etc. Of course, he wants to get money for this and thus, XSP will be renamed to X-Setup Pro and will be Shareware.
However, one of reason why we will do this with dotec, is because Eric shares the same idea of software as myself: First, either software should be free or it should be very cheap. Secondly, the people should get a real value for their money. We think this is a very important part of the entire X-Setup Pro Shareware story, because we will _NOT_ simply take the current X-Setup label it X-Setup Pro and charge money for it.
Instead, we will provide ALL Versions from 6.5 to 6.9 for free for private and home users, just as it was with X-Setup. Only Version 7.0 and upwards will cost money. During this pre-7.0 phase (6.5 - 6.9) we will add feature that are already a long time on your todo list but that we never were able to deliver because of the time problem as described above. To name just a few: Full translation support for the program and later on the plug-ins, an "Apply to different User" feature, a roll-back feature etc.
The next important thing to know about X-Setup Pro is, that it will be _very_ cheap. We will sell it for around __8__ USD/EUR (no joke!) plus a pre-sales phase rebate for people that, well, pre-order 7.0.
So, this is the plan for X-Setup for the next time. I'm writing you this because first I want to know your opinion: Does this make sense? What do you think about this? You are a very long friend of X-Setup, so your opinion matters to us.
Secondly, we would like to know if you are still interessted in X-Setup, although it will be called X-Setup Pro. As with the translation stuff, we could really need to your help.
Regardless how your opinion is, please tell us! Thank you very much.