> > It may be of no importance to application hosters (if by
> > that you mean essentially ISPs who will host whatever they
> > can host as cheaply as possible), but I'd argue that
> > developers, and people using applications, may care very
> > much about who to call when they have trouble.
>
> What I mean specifically, is that what really matters is
> productivity and cost effectiveness. In the case of ASP and
> PHP free is about as cost effective as it gets.
Let's say that those are, in fact, the only two things that matter:
productivity and cost-effectiveness. Do you measure either in the purchase
price alone of the products? Are ASP and PHP, because they're free, more
cost-effective by definition? No, they're not. For many people, CF will
remain far more cost-effective, for various reasons.
> > On the enterprise side of things, is anyone using PHP for
> > enterprise-wide applications? If not, why not?
>
> Yet.
Again, if not, why not? I've got a potential reason - PHP, while it's good,
and free, and multi-platform, still doesn't have all of the functionality
and abstraction that CF does. It's harder, and in many ways does less.
> Ask the same question of ASP and in particular intentions for
> ASP.NET.
Microsoft has always had intentions towards the enterprise. People have been
building enterprise applications with ASP for quite some time. In some
respects, it's better suited for that than CF. Again, Microsoft isn't
selling ASP - it's using it as additional leverage for the whole Microsoft
"enterprise" line, where you'll use only NT/2K/XP servers, running SQL 2000
for internal data storage, using COM+ as the middle-tier application layer
between your admittedly-hard-to-maintain ASP scripts and your databases,
using MSMQ and Site Server to construct loosely-joined logic across multiple
diverse physical locations within your enterprise, using IE as the client
interface to everything, using BizTalk and SOAP to exchange data with the
poor unfortunates in the rest of the world who haven't bought the entire MS
collection. Microsoft is in the unique position of really having only one
product to sell - but it's a doozy. The only way they can sell more of that
product is to add more and more on top of it.
Macromedia, on the other hand, can't have a ten-year plan for their
application server. Their product IS the application server.
> > It seems that there's likely to be a relatively inelastic
> > demand for web development in the future, now that the "fad"
> > part is over. There are only so many editors that can be sold.
> > Since MM's design tools already cater to multiple platforms
> > (and in fact have generally been popular for those other
> > platforms), why shouldn't CF stand on its own weight?
>
> Because although CF is better, it is not better enough for it
> to stand on its own weight - at a premium price.
If you really believe that, you probably should prepare for the inevitable
and start learning something else. If it's not good enough to buy, it's not
good enough to use.
> > If the product is worth using, it's worth selling.
>
> Really - don't you think ASP is worth using? Internet
> Explorer? Outlook Express?
If I had to choose between giving money to Netscape or MS for a browser, I'd
give it to MS. The fact is, though, that MS is using IE, etc, as an
incentive to get me to use Windows on every possible client and server
platform. You, on the other hand, suggest that MM give away their flagship
server-side product to sell editors! By your analogy, Microsoft should sell
IE instead of Windows, and give Windows away for free.
> > Finally, I'd be curious what percentage of web (internet/intranet)
> > development money comes from ISP shared-server application
> > development and hosting. My guess is that it's pretty small, but
> > that's just my uneducated guess.
>
> So would I.
Well, if so, what's the incentive to give CF away? If it's being bought by
private companies for internal/external use, and they're willing to pay
(which is obviously what MM thinks - and I'd guess they've done some
research here) then why shouldn't they charge whatever they like?
> I would also be most interested to see a breakdown of sales
> of Cold Fusion Server (in all of its forms) and Ultradev.
>
> Why? e.g. Because if CF was free, and a hundred times or more
> developers used it as a direct result, (there might well be
> multiple developers, and multiple licensed copies of Ultradev
> per server), and which resulted in the sales of a hundred times
> or more copies of Ultradev - I would like to see where the most
> profit would come from. My guess is that it would easily be
> the latter.
There are a couple of potential problems there.
First, I think it would be very unlikely that CF developers would grow a
hundredfold. There just aren't that many developers. In case you hadn't
noticed, there's been a slight economic downturn, and the web development
skills market is probably near-saturated right now.
Second, CF != Ultradev. CF's popularity has nothing, and will continue to
have nothing, to do with Ultradev. Maybe, MM would be able to sell more
copies of Studio - and maybe not. Interestingly enough, Homesite is already
the most popular ASP developers' tool. Just as there are only so many
potential developers, there are only so many developer seats you can sell.
Third, software piracy seems to be more of a problem on the low end. I
suspect that it's more common to pass a copy of Studio around the office
than it is to pass your enterprise software around.
Fourth, most developers simply aren't going to use the "one true editor".
Developers will use whatever editors they like. Some developers will like
Ultradev (I don't know too many, frankly), some will like Studio, some
prefer Notepad, some like vi.
Finally, and most importantly, when it comes to supporting your enterprise
application and getting it working, you'd be hard-pressed to get help
because "you bought a copy of Ultradev". Part of what you buy, when you buy
a big-ticket item like an application server, is a place to go when things
go wrong.
In any case, if you're not convinced, I'm not going to convince you, and you
certainly haven't convinced me. You may have convinced MM - I'll see if they
start shipping me free servers.
Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software
http://www.figleaf.com/
voice: (202) 797-5496
fax: (202) 797-5444
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