Hi all
Hi all
Inspired by a recent post by Dany Marmur I would like to share my experience with a certain third party database component vendor (I'm not as courteous as Dany - I'm talking about AidAim). Though I'm usually not a fan of ranting just for the sake of it, in this case I think it's justified, and my experience can hopefully serve as a warning to others.
The product in question is Accuracer, a BDE replacement embedded database system developed and sold by AidAim Software (http://www.aidaim.com).
First, let me say that I have been using Accuracer in commercial products for many years, and all-in-all, I have been pretty happy with it. It's pretty fast, very easy to deploy, and apart from the odd bug here and there, it's been pretty reliable. Though AidAim's support has never been that great, the product was pretty stable so I (thankfully) didn't have to deal with them much. If you had asked me six months ago, I probably would have recommended Accuracer.
That all changed in September of 2014 when I got my brand new copy of Delphi XE7 (until then I'd been working on XE2). Like everyone else I went through the whole ritual of buying the XE7 versions of all the third party components I use, including of course, Accuracer. The upgrade to the XE7 version of Accuracer cost me USD355.00 (not a trivial sum in my country). Even though AidAim's web site proudly stated that they have added XE7 support to Accuracer, within minutes of trying the new components for the first time I started getting "Invalid Page Number" errors, and it would just completely corrupt the whole database. Without boring you to death, what followed can be summed up like this:
22-09-2014: Bought and paid for Accuracer V11.00 upgrade for XE7.
01-10-2014: Reported Invalid Page No. errors.
04-10-2014: Got a reply that they could not recreate the error.
(Insert two weeks of back-and-forth arguing about whether or not a problem actually exists)
22-10-2014: Got them to remote into my machine - recreated the error - they admitted there was a problem.
24-10-2014: Got an invoice for USD60.00 for the time they spent "finding and fixing" the bug (which against my better judgement, I paid by the way).
05-11-2014: AidAim releases "fixed" V11.10 for XE7.
06-11-2014: Reported the same "Invalid Page No." error I was getting before.
11-11-2014: Got a reply that they managed to recreate the same error I was getting before.
10-12-2014: AidAim releases a "fixed" V11.20 for XE7 (yes, a month later).
23-12-2014: Reported "Cannot retrieve record", DBGrids with "phantom" records in them, and various other random errors (attached a demo project demonstrating the errors).
09-01-2015: Sent follow-up (no reply).
14-01-2015: Sent follow-up (no reply).
16-01-2015: Sent follow-up (no reply).
24-02-2015: Sent follow-up (no reply).
03-03-2015: Sent follow-up (no reply).
I have not heard a single word from anyone at AidAim since my last error report on the 23rd of December 2014. It has now been 5 months, a total of USD455.00 down the drain, and I still can't move my projects to XE7 since I don't have a working version of the database components.
Since I can't pretty much get on a plane to Moscow and go knock on their door, I guess my only options at this point would be:
1) Get someone else to look at the Accuracer source code and see if they can figure out what's going on (a bit beyond my own abilities, I'm afraid).
2) Rewrite all my existing projects to work with a new database (a massive undertaking, I assure you).
I wish there as some way we could "black-list" guys like these (they're an "Embarcadero Technology Partner" for pete's sake), but since there isn't, consider this my public service announcement for the day.
Buyer beware!
Inspired by a recent post by Dany Marmur I would like to share my experience with a certain third party database component vendor (I'm not as courteous as Dany - I'm talking about AidAim). Though I'm usually not a fan of ranting just for the sake of it, in this case I think it's justified, and my experience can hopefully serve as a warning to others.
The product in question is Accuracer, a BDE replacement embedded database system developed and sold by AidAim Software (http://www.aidaim.com).
First, let me say that I have been using Accuracer in commercial products for many years, and all-in-all, I have been pretty happy with it. It's pretty fast, very easy to deploy, and apart from the odd bug here and there, it's been pretty reliable. Though AidAim's support has never been that great, the product was pretty stable so I (thankfully) didn't have to deal with them much. If you had asked me six months ago, I probably would have recommended Accuracer.
That all changed in September of 2014 when I got my brand new copy of Delphi XE7 (until then I'd been working on XE2). Like everyone else I went through the whole ritual of buying the XE7 versions of all the third party components I use, including of course, Accuracer. The upgrade to the XE7 version of Accuracer cost me USD355.00 (not a trivial sum in my country). Even though AidAim's web site proudly stated that they have added XE7 support to Accuracer, within minutes of trying the new components for the first time I started getting "Invalid Page Number" errors, and it would just completely corrupt the whole database. Without boring you to death, what followed can be summed up like this:
22-09-2014: Bought and paid for Accuracer V11.00 upgrade for XE7.
01-10-2014: Reported Invalid Page No. errors.
04-10-2014: Got a reply that they could not recreate the error.
(Insert two weeks of back-and-forth arguing about whether or not a problem actually exists)
22-10-2014: Got them to remote into my machine - recreated the error - they admitted there was a problem.
24-10-2014: Got an invoice for USD60.00 for the time they spent "finding and fixing" the bug (which against my better judgement, I paid by the way).
05-11-2014: AidAim releases "fixed" V11.10 for XE7.
06-11-2014: Reported the same "Invalid Page No." error I was getting before.
11-11-2014: Got a reply that they managed to recreate the same error I was getting before.
10-12-2014: AidAim releases a "fixed" V11.20 for XE7 (yes, a month later).
23-12-2014: Reported "Cannot retrieve record", DBGrids with "phantom" records in them, and various other random errors (attached a demo project demonstrating the errors).
09-01-2015: Sent follow-up (no reply).
14-01-2015: Sent follow-up (no reply).
16-01-2015: Sent follow-up (no reply).
24-02-2015: Sent follow-up (no reply).
03-03-2015: Sent follow-up (no reply).
I have not heard a single word from anyone at AidAim since my last error report on the 23rd of December 2014. It has now been 5 months, a total of USD455.00 down the drain, and I still can't move my projects to XE7 since I don't have a working version of the database components.
Since I can't pretty much get on a plane to Moscow and go knock on their door, I guess my only options at this point would be:
1) Get someone else to look at the Accuracer source code and see if they can figure out what's going on (a bit beyond my own abilities, I'm afraid).
2) Rewrite all my existing projects to work with a new database (a massive undertaking, I assure you).
I wish there as some way we could "black-list" guys like these (they're an "Embarcadero Technology Partner" for pete's sake), but since there isn't, consider this my public service announcement for the day.
Buyer beware!
Alexander Sviridenkov i have done so several times :( Thanks!
ReplyDeleteNews on clever. I used the instructions at the dri-site to request a refund. I got apologies and the aforementioned bonus. This will perhaps evolve to an acceptable epic.
ReplyDeleteI'm in same situation with Accuracer, mine version 6 till today I didn’t use it, I have complex queries and sub quires never works, all results are wrong , I contacted them for months, they charged me $149 with few fixes still same problem, I flushed $600 and finally gave up, I can’t continue to pay on tools should be ready when I bought it, I became their tester instead developing my own application, shame on him Ella or whatever call himself, the problem no phone to call, or no address to visit them even if they are in Russia, I suggest no one buy this tool , there many other good stable tools and honest people, the funny is you have to contact them through stupid ticket, and you know why..
ReplyDelete