The PB Experience

[Jim Bailey]

Chris,

It's understandable that you are having a hard time accepting that PowerBASIC has come to the end of it's useful life. It was always 5 or more years behind the technology curve. Ignoring COM for years and then 64 bit was the fatal blows that became it's demise.. Bob passing just sealed the deal. I think it's obvious with your sale every other week that no one is buying PB or 3rd party add-ons. You need to find a real job or get behind a product with a future.

John

I find it impressive to see how many turn their back so quickly.  PowerBASIC has always met or exceeded benchmarks of 99% of the compilers out there.  As everyone has been told, 64bit will be real.  But do you really know what advantages 64bit gives you?  Microsoft even recommends that you install Office as a 32bit on 64bit machines.

I thank you Chris, your EZGui products are well written, and have helped us sell many products.  And you are right, being a senior employee, I took over operations.  I am an analyst, a programmer, and a teacher - learning marketing and trying to make the best decisions for PB have been a big challenge for me. 

Our site and phones have been down since 3:00pm Sat.  We moved into a bigger office and have hired an on-site IT specialist, a marketing genius, and some more tech support personnel.

We hope to have everything normalized in the next day or 2 (I hope today...) and when we get back to 100% we will be relaunching the beta forums for testing.

I sincerely regret the difficulties all PBers have endured.  We are continuing to make newer and better compilers. 

PB did not die Nov. 6, 2012.  It was forced to change. 

Jim Bailey
PowerBASIC Staff

[Chris Holbrook]

learning marketing and trying to make the best decisions for PB have been a big challenge for me.

There is no try in business, Jim.

[Dan Campbell]

Chris,

It's understandable that you are having a hard time accepting that PowerBASIC has come to the end of it's useful life. It was always 5 or more years behind the technology curve. Ignoring COM for years and then 64 bit was the fatal blows that became it's demise.. Bob passing just sealed the deal. I think it's obvious with your sale every other week that no one is buying PB or 3rd party add-ons. You need to find a real job or get behind a product with a future.

John

I find it impressive to see how many turn their back so quickly.  PowerBASIC has always met or exceeded benchmarks of 99% of the compilers out there.  As everyone has been told, 64bit will be real.  But do you really know what advantages 64bit gives you?  Microsoft even recommends that you install Office as a 32bit on 64bit machines.

I thank you Chris, your EZGui products are well written, and have helped us sell many products.  And you are right, being a senior employee, I took over operations.  I am an analyst, a programmer, and a teacher - learning marketing and trying to make the best decisions for PB have been a big challenge for me. 

Our site and phones have been down since 3:00pm Sat.  We moved into a bigger office and have hired an on-site IT specialist, a marketing genius, and some more tech support personnel.

We hope to have everything normalized in the next day or 2 (I hope today...) and when we get back to 100% we will be relaunching the beta forums for testing.

I sincerely regret the difficulties all PBers have endured.  We are continuing to make newer and better compilers. 

PB did not die Nov. 6, 2012.  It was forced to change. 

Jim Bailey
PowerBASIC Staff

Not all of us are leaving.  Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.

When the site gets re-settled and you have a chance, please post some of the near-future enhancement plans.  I'm using only PBCC, but interested in hearing what's in the works for the flagship product, as well.

[Sam Jackson]

Great news Jim. Very pleased to hear that PowerBasic is alive and well.

[John Spikowski]

Well there you have it. News from the PBICU.

[David Roberts]

I am an analyst, a programmer, and a teacher - learning marketing and trying to make the best decisions for PB have been a big challenge for me.

have hired an on-site IT specialist, a marketing genius

Better late than never. Now, let them get on with it and you step back and do what you are best at.

José should sleep better tonight. 

[Vincent van der Leun]

There is no try in business, Jim.

FWIW, I appreciate the honesty of mr. Bailey quite a bit.
He must be in a very difficult situation and I appreciate he registered here.

On an unrelated note, I always wondered if a subscription type of license could work for PB. For example, I bought SwiftForth (a commercial Forth interpreter by Forth Inc.) a while ago for about 319 dollars (this offer is not available anymore AFAIK) and for one year I can always download every update they release (which they do regularly). Those updates bring both new features and bugfixes. After a year I've to pay about 120 USD annually for this service. I believe when they come out with a new major version I'd need to pay a high upgrade price, but this happens rarely. The version 2.x to 3.x .transition happened in 2006 for example.

Although I am definitely not a marketing expert, I can imagine a subscription model could bring a more steady flow of cash for a small company selling niche products.

Just a thought.

[Brice Manuel]

But do you really know what advantages 64bit gives you?

x64 offers:

Twice the number of general purpose registers (each twice as large, ie, four times as much space)
Twice the number of SSE registers
SSE capability is guaranteed on x64 processors
Improved Application Binary Interface that can greatly benefit compilers utilizing proper optimizations

Lastly, there is the RAM benefit.  Unfortunately, few compilers take full advantage of the benefits of x64.

I am an analyst, a programmer, and a teacher - learning marketing and trying to make the best decisions for PB have been a big challenge for me.

Never second guess yourself and do not let the vocal minority get to you.

[Brice Manuel]

... Atom only comes in 32 bit versions.

This is incorrect.  As of  Diamondville and Pineview, Atom supports x64 just fine.  However, Microsoft does not always provide x64 drivers, hence some Atom setups can't run 64-bit versions of Windows.  I bought this computer back in '09.  It runs the 64-bit version of Windows 7 just fine.

[Theo Gottwald]

PB did not die Nov. 6, 2012.  It was forced to change. 

That sounds better then expected.

I find it impressive to see how many turn their back so quickly.

Reliability is important in bussiness. And when somebody shuts down, its a good idea to gibe customers a note.

on-site IT specialist, a marketing genius, and some more tech support personnel.

I wonder the marketing genius is already there - he should have known that.

Anyway - a marketing genius is just whats missing. Next he can take a look on "How Purebasic" got really profitable. Some hints:

1. They sold once and gave all further updates FREE
2. They sold in boxes in the shop
3. They assimilated all donations from Fans
4. They sold multiplatform

While actually "leasing Software" is theme. For example ... pay 2 US$ a month to have all Updates and new versions for PB free.

[Michael Mattias]

am an analyst, a programmer, and a teacher - learning marketing and trying to make the best decisions for PB have been a big challenge for me.

That's because management is not the same as analyzing, programming or teaching. It's its own professional discipline.

MCM

[Frank Cardwell]

Thanks Jim for responding. So happy to hear PB is still alive. I'm not a professional programmer, just use programming to get things done that need to be automated. I loved vb1-6, hate .net, hate c in all its forms. Basic is a natural language to program in and PB made it come alive again. I'm looking forward to what's next.

[Gary Beene]

John,
So, let's see ... your  quote from 2008:

I think PowerBASIC is at the end of it's useful life cycle ...

And now, your quote from 2013

...hard time accepting that PowerBASIC has come to the end of it's useful life

I can't wait for 2015 to see what you say then!   

[Brice Manuel]

Anyway - a marketing genius is just whats missing. Next he can take a look on "How Purebasic" got really profitable. Some hints:

1. They sold once and gave all further updates FREE
2. They sold in boxes in the shop
3. They assimilated all donations from Fans
4. They sold multiplatform

The boxes sold in shops were fixed versions and could not be upgraded and did not qualify for free upgrades/updates.  People were very upset to find they had to purchase the product again if they wanted to upgrade it.  The boxed versions were primarily aimed at game developers and were sold as a game development language.

PureBasic was so profitable that Fred could not make a living from it for a couple of years and had to take on a regular job and work on PureBasic in his free time.  During this time PureBasic barely saw any updates.  The "official" reason given for only working on PureBasic part time was that Fred was lonely and missed working with other people.  That said, Fred now works on PureBasic full time.

PureBasic recently saw an influx of a couple of users from MiniBasic after its author was arrested and sent to prison and PureBasic saw an influx of people after Bob died.  But, over the past few years, PureBasic has lost users and the community has dwindled as people have left for other languages that support mobile development.  The PureBasic community is a ghost town when compared to how it used to be.

PureBasic is a good product, and Fred is a very capable programmer and I have never regretted purchasing it and I still use it.  But, it is not the only tool I use and never will be.

[Theo Gottwald]

If its that bad anyway, i have no idea how Jim will pay all those new people in his bussiness.
I wonder what ideas the marketing genius will have to put out of his hat.
Hopefully something for large companies  with yearly SLA's and a "Company Licence".
I do not see how enough money can be earned anyway with private customers.
Or sell special "Krypto versions" to NSA? Of course they need to be 64 bit ....