goCRM product released – Free now

goCRM had its initial release today, and it could be interesting to some as we’re giving away free, yes free, software, that could be useful to someone running a small business.

Technology

The application is a Windows client/server application based on the following platform:

• Borland Delphi 7 – compiled Win32 executable
• Developer Express VCL Libraries – user interface controls
• Reportbuilder – Delphi native report engine with end-user report designer
• Firebird – Open source client/server database engine

We have C# and MSSQL Server skills, have several MSDN subscriptions, but we deliberately chose to develop the product in Delphi….why?

• Internet Deployment – We have an 8MB download – including a client/server database – impossible with .NET, and a 100+MB download is too much – way too much.

• User experience – A Win32 application written in Delphi is FAR more responsive than a .NET application.

• Speed of development – We have C# experience and Delphi experience, and while it is true we’ve more Delphi experience than C#, the consensus here is it’s still quite a lot quicker to get a Delphi application out of the door than one created in Visual Studio.
  

As .NET matures, we’ll be keeping an eye on things and future versions of the software could have a .NET client – we’ll have to wait and see. As we add things like Internet services, we’ll have this in mind as we make our technology choices; but for now, we’re sticking with Win32 and Delphi.