I think the biggest problem was that between delphi 7 and delphi 2010 there wasn't a version worth paying for, even if you were an enterprise shop at the core o

I think the biggest problem was that between delphi 7 and delphi 2010 there wasn't a version worth paying for, even if you were an enterprise shop at the core of their delphi target market. All they did was bundle components which you could have bought yourself, and tack new features on the side, while letting the core platform go basically unmaintained. After embarcadero took over, delphi releases actually improved the core again. I don't buy the argument that the IDE market was dead. If properly managed to cater to enterprise developer's needs, delphi could have still been big. A lot of commercial software got built with delphi not because it was affordable, but because it was better than the alternatives.