When you're making half a million or more each year writing vertical market software, the price tag for a Delphi/RAD Studio license each year is irrelevant. Th

When you're making half a million or more each year writing vertical market software, the price tag for a Delphi/RAD Studio license each year is irrelevant. This is especially true when Delphi was the reason why you're making all that money in the first place. It's kind of a "you had to have been there..." type of story, but if you get a chance, talk to a developer that was trying to create Windows applications for businesses back in the 90's and you will know what I mean. The really sad part is that while .NET and C# have done an okay job of providing a replacement (I think that MS has a hard time staying on-point when it comes to dev tools and make their tools too much of a moving target), you really cannot find anything exactly like Delphi/RAD Studio today. The primary reason why it's so sad is that Delphi created millions upon millions of dollars of revenue for independent software vendors all over the world, and you would think that companies would be trying to replicate that success. Alas, it's hard to contemplate even attempting such an endeavor when developer tools are not valued properly according to the money that they make the developer. If the software world finds a way to start making money from developer tools again, then you'll see another Delphi and it will be a lot cheaper.