The end of GrafX and how to continue from here

GrafX Database Systems, the company from Brian Feldman, has closed shop. Many of you have already seen that and commented on that.

On the former GrafX website an accusing finger is pointed to us and accusations are made that we have "stolen" products from GrafX.
That is a blatant lie and very far from the truth.  We did not respond on this website before because we tried to solve this the political way by talking with GrafX but we failed to do so.

Let's look back at why the X# project was started:

We started the X# project out of frustration about the way that GrafX / Brian was managing the development of Visual Objects and Vulcan and about the free fall these products were in due to lack of interest, communication and vision from the product owner.
For this reason Robert had already left the GrafX development team and Nikos, Fabrice and Chris were about to do the same in 2015.

We joined our forces and started this project together. Of course, we were helped a lot by the fact that Microsoft had released the Roslyn source code, and of course it helped a lot that we had done this before. Our motto was "we did it before, we can do it again".

At the start of our project we have approached Brian/GrafX and offered to buy what was left of Vulcan and we also offered him a share in our annual revenues for the FOX program. At first Brian agreed, but later he declined for reasons not known to us. This was short after we asked for proof of the ownership of the source code and for proof of the sales figures (due diligence).
We have speculated about the reasons for his change of mind. Some ideas we had were:

  • He could not proof ownership of the product most likely for one of the following reasons:

    • some source code in Vulcan is most likely still copyright CA,

    • he has never asked his developers to sign anything to transfer their intellectual property to him

  • The sales figures that he told us about were made up

Whatever his real reasons, we did not have a deal and we went our own way. GrafX did not like that because we were now both competing in the same market. And we all know how that competition went: GrafX had no development team and did not make any progress. The number of VOPS subscribers went downhill where our team created new versions, integrated into a new version of Visual Studio etc. and we got more and more FOX subscribers.

And yes, we told you, our customers, that you could use your version of the Vulcan Runtime with our product. There is nothing illegal in that. In fact, the Vulcan documentation describes exactly how you can use Vulcan assemblies in other .Net development languages.  So, this is a scenario that GrafX was already prepared for.

Anyway, like we said before, after the announcement that GrafX has closed shop, we have approached Brian Feldman again and asked him to remove the lies from his website and to bury the hatchet and to work together in the interest of the community.
We also offered him money for some of the runtime source code that we are still interested in. Unfortunately, Brian did not even bother to reply to our email and has not changed his website. He has chosen to ignore us.

This leaves our community in an awkward position. GrafX has closed and was the only company selling Visual Objects and ReportPro.

We have been in contact with the original developers and owners of ReportPro and they have expressed to us that they want you, the customers, to be supported as good as possible. Due to obligations at their current jobs they cannot do that themselves.

Now that GrafX is no longer in business there is no longer a company where you can buy ReportPro and get ReportPro support. Brian is still selling it on his website but is very unclear who is behind this website and we have been told that customers will not get an invoice or support.

A few months ago, we have started ReportPro support on our website for FOX subscribers. We have decided that we will now also include support for other VO and Vulcan developers and that you can now also buy the product from us. The sales infrastructure is not ready yet, but if you are interested, please send us a message. We will add ReportPro 2 and ReportPro 3  to our online shop but you can also buy it with a normal Invoice and pay with a bank wire.

The pricing for ReportPro will be:

ReportPro 2 or ReportPro 3 for VO 2.8, binary version.
This includes the linkable designer
Γé¼ 99
   
ReportPro 2 or ReportPro 3 for .Net, binary version.
This includes the linkable designer
Γé¼ 99
   
ReportPro 2 or ReportPro 3 for VO 2.8, source code version Γé¼ 299
   
ReportPro 2 or ReportPro 3 for .Net, source code version Γé¼ 299

    

Support will be given through our webforums.


12 comments

  • Hi Robert,

    Do this means that ReportPro can be extended to X# and beyond to level the playing field that dominated by Xtrareports, Telerik Reporting, Crystal and many more?

    Regards,

    Rene
  • Rene,

    Our intention is to deliver support and to keep ReportPro working with X# and with newer versions of Windows.
    We do not have the capacity to extend ReportPro in other areas and no plans to compete with the products that you mentioned.
    If you know someone that wants to do that, then please let us know.

    Robert
  • Hi Robert,

    Good to know that ReportPro is in good hands now. Maybe, extending it, porting it to X# in Core Dialect is one of your objectives, probably that is good idea for making fully extensible in .NET.

    I know no one that I think of that have capability to do higher end stuff, but who knows, maybe there is someone out there willing.

    Regards,

    Rene
    [quote name="Robert van der Hulst"]Rene,

    Our intention is to deliver support and to keep ReportPro working with X# and with newer versions of Windows.
    We do not have the capacity to extend ReportPro in other areas and no plans to compete with the products that you mentioned.
    If you know someone that wants to do that, then please let us know.

    Robert[/quote]
  • Rene, I just checked the RP3 projects, a search for "AS USUAL" gives 466 hits. For "AS ARRAY" gives 671. It's certainly doable porting it to Core, but it is a lot of work. And I am afraid there's plenty of work needed to be done in other areas, so unfortunately such a task gets low priority.
  • IMHO a conversion to Core is not possible at least for ReportPro 2 as it needs some classes from VO GUI and DBServer classes that make heavy use of usuals.
    Wolfgang
  • Giorgio, yes, the VO and .Net versions of RP are compatible and the .rpt format is the same, so you should have no issues with that.
  • Giorgio,

    We have not setup the online shop page for ReportPro. Too busy with technology to prepare the shop, unlike some other companies.

    I can send you an invoice if you want. In that case, mail me your information. If you are a company and inside the EU please also include your VAT number so I can send you an invoice without tax.

    Robert at XSharp dot EU
  • [quote name="Chris Pyrgas"]Rene, I just checked the RP3 projects, a search for "AS USUAL" gives 466 hits. For "AS ARRAY" gives 671. It's certainly doable porting it to Core, but it is a lot of work. And I am afraid there's plenty of work needed to be done in other areas, so unfortunately such a task gets low priority.[/quote]

    Hi Chris,

    It is better to get low priority than nothing at all.

    Look forward to ReportPro for X# Core. Maybe this exercise can lead to a much better X# compiler and IntelliSense support, although today, compiler working great, but IntelliSense still far from C# or even VO. At least in does not follow VO repugnant IntelliSense style of forcing variable to a case based on existing variables. For example, in VO, if I type pEopleAge and press space bar and tried to correct that to peopleAge, it will force it to return to pEopleAge. My solution to that problem is to write like this _peopleAge all pEopleAge and exit all instances of VO, and return again and correct it to correct case as peopleAge, this time VO will oblige. Other thing (not related to my topic), F4 is my hated shortcut keys in VO IDE. I am huge fan of F3, then accidentally, most of the time obviously, F4 put my windows in cascading views.

    anyway, looking forward really to X# Runtime to say Vn runtime goodbye, above all else.

    Regards,

    Rene