What are good arguments to convince management to upgrade to Delphi 2009 / 2010?

Question

We have a medium-to-large size application. One version runs on Delphi 6 and another one on Delphi 2006.

One argument would be support for Unicode. We need that to cater to Customers around the world.

Other things I have read about are: better IDE (stability, speed), better Help and some cool additions to the language (e.g.: generics)

What about third-party components? We use DevExpress, DBISAM and many others. Are these already ported?

Touch/Gestures sound cool, but we have no use for that in our application.

Answer 1

Better theme support (eg., TStringGrid/TDBGrid now support themes).

Support for Windows Vista and Windows 7, including support for the Direct2D Canvas in Win7 and the Touch/Gesture support you mentioned.

Improved refactoring, including support for refactoring generics.

Built-in source code formatter.

IDE Insight allows you to find things in the IDE itself.

Enhanced RTTI.

Improvements in the debugger, including new custom data visualizers and the ability to create your own. There are two included with source (one for TDateTime and one for TStringList). Also better support for debugging threads, including the ability to name threads for debugging and set breakpoints on specific threads.

The ability to add version control support to the IDE via interfaces. This will allow version control developers to add support directly in the IDE itself.

The help is much better than in previous versions. It's been completely redesigned again, and is much more comprehensive and complete. There's also an online wiki-based version (used to generate the help itself) that you can add or edit.

Background compilation allows you to continue working while you're compiling your project.

As far as third party controls, that's up to the specific vendor; you'll have to check to see if Delphi 2010 versions are available for each of them individually. (You might check the Embarcadero web site, though, to see if they have a list already available; I seem to recall hearing of one... Ah, yes. Here it is. )

Answer 2

• Last upgrade for old version

With old version of Delphi (before Delphi 2005), you have only before january 1 2010 to upgrade.

After you will have to buy a full version.

• Productivity

http://www.tmssoftware.com/site/blog.asp?post=127

Answer 3

Purely as a reactive measure. Lets say that there is a new feature in the latest version of a yet to be released operating system. Lets say that this feature breaks certain features inside your application. IF there was to be a global fix for it, it would most likely not be placed in older versions of the compiler, but the newer versions which "officially" support the new operating system. The largest problem about waiting too long is that when such a measure is needed its generally at the zero hour when sales are at risk.

Upgrade NOW, and help prepare your application to be more reactive to future changes.

Answer 4

Don't convince him for a Delphi 2009/2010 upgrade, Do it for a Software Assurance.