AppWave: No individuals allowed?

I ran into a first-look review of Embarcadero’s new AppWave service.  It had a link to the beta registration, so I thought I may as well check it out and see what it’s like.  The link takes you to a pretty standard form… until you look at it closely.

On the form, there’s a required field labeled “Company Name”.  Below it are “First Name” and “Last Name” fields, not marked as required.

…what?

Now, when the Delphi installer asks me for a company name as a required field, that’s just a minor annoyance. I can make up something to fill in there and no one will ever care.  But this is an official registration form for a service designed to make money for people, and when money’s involved, so are laws, and things get serious.  I’m not certain, but I’ve got a strong suspicion that entering false information on a form like this may technically constitute an act of fraud.  But it’s a required field; the site will reject your submission if you leave it blank.

This one goes squarely in the “what were they thinking?” bin.

Emb Guy 1: “Let’s create an app store, and require everyone to register as a company. Individual developers are not welcome.”
Emb Guy 2: “Wow!  I love it!  What a wonderful way to attract developers to our platform, who will create apps and make it successful!”

Or maybe they just weren’t thinking.  Maybe it never crossed whoever’s mind it was that these ideas are supposed to cross that individual hobbyist developers (or people like myself, professional coders who like to work on personal projects in their spare time) might want to use the service as well?

Or is this just a bug, an accident on the web designer’s part that slipped past QA somehow?  I’d really like to believe that it wasn’t intentional…

EDIT: Apparently it wasn’t intentional.  The form has been updated with a pair of radio buttons that allow you to register as “Company” or “Individual”, with appropriate changes to the required fields settings.  Thanks to Warren for pointing this out.

12 Comments

  1. SteelToad says:

    Just a personal opinion:
    I held out hope as what was Borland moved in the direction of being CodeGear. I thought that perhaps there was some help of it once again becoming the Borland of old. Sadly as Embarcadero, it has moved back to the Inprise end of the spectrum.

    I dont begrudge them their position, Companies have money, idividuals (for the most part) dont. Businesses need to make money. Still it’s sad to see the individual developer viewed as additional income as opposed to the core of the business. My concerns about the longevity of Delphi have become a moot point … I’m moving on.

  2. Hannes says:

    I usually just put “n/a” or “none” in such things when I pay as private entity. Never had any trouble with that with the suppliers and my solicitor/lawyer has ensured me that this is absolutely legal.

  3. Mason Wheeler says:

    Hannes: Yeah, I figured that would probably work. But the underlying assumptions implied by the required fields just kind of disturb me…

  4. C Johnson says:

    Here in Alberta, Canada, there is a lesser legal vehicle known as a trade name, perhaps it would meet the burden required.

    Unless they start asking for business numbers, etc I’m betting it is just an oversight. Like people who think they can ask for social insurance numbers as a lazy way to generate unique ID#s (In Canada, on the government can obligate you to provide a SIN number, for everyone else should refuse it)

  5. JerseyGuy says:

    I’m gonna go with ‘they just werent thinking’ on this one. BorCodeDero has never been very good with web technologies. Plus they do have cubicle-for-brains, assuming that the only entities in business are corporations, so it probably never occurred to them that individuals would want to use the system.

  6. Jolyon Smith says:

    Whatever the reasons and whatever the legal ramifications of completing a form with a required field with a placeholder for a non-response to that field, I agree that it is a sign of the sort of thinking within Embarcadero. It is a sad return to/continuation of the “Enterprise” thinking of the days of Inprise, which I thought were supposed to be behind us.

    And this is not an isolated example.

    As you point out, the licensing/registration process expects (read: requires) a company name to be identified.

    When I recently asked for a refund on a purchase of Starter Edition (the previously unadvertised lack of VCL source being the reason) I was required to complete a “Destruction of License” form. I had to send that form back to Embarcadero because the wording of the form expected/required me to be signing on behalf of a company. There was no company involved so the “Letter of Destruction” was meaningless as written. It wasn’t a case of sending me the wrong letter, they simply don’t/didn’t HAVE a letter applicable for an individual – they had to create one!

    Just two more examples that immediately leap to mind.

  7. John Jacobson says:

    People need to remember that a company’s golden age usually lasts only a few years at best. Borland had a golden age around the Dbase IV era, and that was pretty much it. When you think about it, it is amazing that Delphi is still coming out in new versions.

  8. Warren says:

    I hate to ruin the whine-fest here. But did you try clicking the (*) individual radio button. Then the company name isn’t required. Silly people.

    Warren

    • Mason Wheeler says:

      Very interesting. I won’t try to claim credit for that, but I should point out that that button was not there when I wrote this article. (I still had the window open in my browser. I hit refresh when I saw your comment and watched the new radio buttons appear.) Thanks for pointing it out!

  9. jachguate says:

    The second field on That page is a radio button named “Type”, if you select Individual, the *Required field mark changes to First Name and Last Name. This is today 4/1, maybe not yesterday.

Leave a Reply to François