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Mar 11 2009

Embarcadero announces “Instant-On” – Eliminating the Installation Process for Delphi (and all other products)

Posted by Olaf Monien in Delphi, Development, Miscellaneous, tags: ,

Embarcadero is apparently in the process of blowing out an e-mail blast, which “silently” announces Instant-On(TM), a mechanism which basically eliminates the installation process. You get one executable per product, run it and it will, well, “run”.  No more tedious installation procedure.

As far as I understand this technology, you would even be able to keep your Delphi (or any other Embarcadero product) on a USB-stick, and run it on any computer you like.  Just plug in the stick and run the exe. Very cool!

I’m excited to get a first demo of this in my hands!

Here is the online-version of the (German) newsletter announcing this technology.

Update: The AllAccess information page also contains the note about “InstantOn. In fact it was already mentioned in the earlier press release of AllAccess – but apprently it didn’t get much attention.

Quote: “On-Demand Power with Embarcadero InstantOn™

A unique, innovative capability in All-Access is Embarcadero InstantOn. With InstantOn, you can simply click-and-run the selected tool on-demand, either locally or over your network, without full installation on your local machine. InstantOn saves valuable time by allowing quick access to tools, even in locked-down desktop environments where installing software is problematic.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 18:48 and is filed under Delphi, Development, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Sounds like VMwares Virtual appliances
  • Somewhat. The difference is, that it does not load a full VM, but runs in the context of the physical machine. Much fewer overhead that is.
  • Stuart
    How does this affect customers with software assurance?
  • There will be upgrade options. I've not seen official price lists yet, but they told me that they won't forget the guys who paid software assurance.
  • Looks to be only as part of an "All Access" license/SKU rather than a complete move away from installation (although presumably the tech would allow that if they so choose in the future).

    English version of the press release here:

    http://www.embarcadero.com/news/press_releases/...
  • Robin van Nooij
    I saw a demo by Pawel Glowacki about the instant-on. He had a USB-stick with all applications of Embarcadero (ALL-ACCESS). Very nice. One USB stick with all the tools you need.

    I wonder wether it supports custom installed components. Or even better, selectable profiles or something like that.
  • Giel
    If this lets you start debugging on any computer right after plugging in your Delphi USB stick, that would be very cool.
  • Raymond Wilson
    Better yet, spend the time spent developing InstantOn(TM) on the Win64 Delphi compiler! ;-)
  • I would say, as soon as there is a Win64 compiler (and the modified IDE, which seems to be a lot of work as well), an Instant-On build process just needs started :)
  • Agreed. There are certainly a couple of old battle fields, but to get attention on the market innovations like this are really required.
  • Mick
    That's a silly argument. Maybe, just maybe, the compiler developers didn't actually implement this!?!

    It's the same old argument that Microsoft always gets: "I can't believe they added X, Y, and Z features to Office when they should have been fixing UAC."

    Any innovation that Embarcadero wants to bring to Delphi is more than welcome by me. Keep it up!
  • >It's the same old argument that Microsoft always gets: "I can't believe they added X, Y, and Z features to Office when they should have been fixing UAC."

    They keep getting that argument because it's valid. UAC is a badly broken feature, and it's one that users have to interact with on a regular (often daily) basis. See The Joel Test, question 5. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000...
  • Raymond Wilson
    I'm quite sure the compiler people didn't do it. But that's not the point. The issue is resource allocation.

    Of course, Embarcadero might have had this in the works long before they acquired CodeGear.

    My totally biased opinion is that I want CodeGear to improve the dev tools. InstantOn is potentially a cool piece of tech, expecially if I can use it for my own products. But I'd take Delphi improvements like Win64 compilation, and single source forwards interoperability between Delphi.NET and Delphi Prism any day (and I'm willing to bet there's a lot more like me too ;-) )
  • Mick
    >I'm quite sure the compiler people didn't do it. But that's not the point. The issue is resource allocation.

    No, resource allocation is not the point. Consider the auto manufacturer Honda. Now, when they are working on a new car design, do you think they pull the salesmen in to help the engineers? No, not at all because they do entirely different things. Just like you wouldn't have the engineers try to sell the cars.

    Embarcadero doesn't just have this "pool" of programmers that are all equally gifted. Some know a lot about writing compilers, and some are better suited to improving the IDE. Makes sense, doesn't it?
  • Raymond Wilson
    I get your point. I think you may be missing mine.

    While InstantOn is cute, it doesn't solve my (totally biased ;-) ) need for the Delphi dev tools to be improved.

    If InstantOn is in fact someone else technology Embarcadero has licensed, and the installer jockeys there shoehorned the toolset into it than that's totally different from deciding to invest in the R&D to make it happen versus making the same R&D investment into your core competency of making dev tools. Which, oddly enough, fits into your argument ;-)

    Anyway, I'm not looking for a drawn out debate - just venting a little ;-)
  • Mick
    Fair enough...I was a bit salty when I responded. You do make a good point. Regards.
  • I got your point, but I don't think they invented that from scratch. I guess
    this is based on some 3rd party technology. XenoCode's "PostBuild" goes in
    that direction.
    http://www.xenocode.com/Products/Postbuild-for-...
  • Rich
    I wish Embarcadero would provide more "meat-and-potatoes" such as an easy way to update Indy10.

    Or better yet, I wish they would provide a bugfix update to Indy10 because it is tightly integrated with Delphi 2009 and tricky to upgrade manually.

    Please, either unbundle Indy10 from Delphi (so we can more easily upgrade it ourselves) or provide bugfixes critical Indy10 bugs.
  • Indy updates are provided together with "regular" Delphi updates. As Indy is an OpenSource project driven by volunteers, there is no guarantee though, that updates are availbale when a Delphi updated is ready to be released.

    I don't see how "unbundling" would help with updates ...

    I guess the real question is, how "Instant-On" will work with component customizations.
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