Hi, Aldo!
I would certainly view Flex as more than
a “browser built in Flash” – it is server-side generated
Flash. Quite a different architecture, of course Also, I wouldn’t
say that Flex deals with “enterprise development workflow”, per se.
Just a piece of the puzzle.
While Flash is the important piece, Flash
player makes MM very little direct money. Don’t discount Flex and
its future companions (app builders, other back end information delivery
products, etc.) as insignificant. They are very significant!
Having just been acquired by SAP, I’m
currently involved in conceptualizing solutions for the manufacturing vertical
to deliver on exactly what you described below:
<<Perhaps an integrated presentation ( flex ) + presence + BPM + ESB + collab
+ management...?>>
I totally share that
vision and think we’re getting really close…stay tuned! Try to make it to SAP TechEd this year in Vienna
or Boston…
- Rick
From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:flexcoders@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Aldo Bucchi
Sent: Monday, August 01, 2005 3:59
PM
To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [flexcoders] Hope all
is watching the Avalon space..
Hi guys,
I believe you are missing the macro perspective
here.
Don't give Flex that much importance in the long
term.
After all it is just a browser built into Flash,
with a set of tools
to allow an enterprise development workflow.
It won't be long till an opensource alternative
pops up... it's just a
matter of time till the osflash community develops
the pieces and
someone puts them together. No rocket science.
Moreover, anyone with enough money to get Flex is,
most of the times,
developing for an intranet where there is full
control over the client
runtime and they would happily switch to a less
expensive alternative,
or to one that fits nicer into the workflow, even
if they have to give
up some eye candy or functionality. Eventually
Avalon and other techs
will be better practical alternatives for an
important majority.
The important piece here is the Flash player and
it's impressive
features, all bundled into one tiny download:
- ubiquity ( 9_% )
- consistency across platforms ( including mobile
)
- rich scripting language ( AS2 + E4X = reuse,
best practices, productivity++ )
- multimedia
- streaming, web presence ( flash comm )
I believe it is the sum of these that will be hard
to beat... this is
MM's strong card.
Don't take me wrong, I believe Flex is a wonderful
tech, and I enjoy
developing with it and having my customers praise
me for free... a
paradigm shifter. But let's not loose objectivity.
It's like talking about Swing, when the important
piece is the JVM.
So, Flex is happening today... helping Flash gain
some respect in the
enterprise arena ( and MM make tons of money ),
but old good Flash
will eventually live on, on it's own, and will
evolve as requirements
grow. Unless MM pulls some licence trickery that
changes the landscape
in the short term, of course. Who knows.
OTOH, I believe MM has done marvels with in making
Flex hard to beat,
and I hope some more power come out of merging
flex with the rest of
the family.
Perhaps an integrated presentation ( flex ) +
presence + BMP + ESB +
collab + management...?
The flash player can get that far, no doubt about
it.
BTW, I was attending a Best of SAP world tour
conference the other
day, going over some new netweaver features, and I
thought...
What if these guys had built all the presentation
capabilities of
netweaver with flash from the beginning! They
would have the ultimate
platform from head to toes, from desktop to
mobile, with very little
tradeoffs.
The important thing to understand here is that the
SOA trend is
quickly pushing more and more functonality to
layers that are strongly
related to presentation: collab, presence,
information pushing, drag
and relate, high level BUS entry points, etc.
Thus a robust solution on this end would enhance
any platform
dramatically ( this wasn't true some time ago ).
Online presence, streaming and collab are just too
real and too
powerful to overlook nowadays.
The same goes for Bea, oracle, etc.
Team up, Macromedia!
well, that was a getting too OT.
Back to work.
Best,
Aldo
On 8/1/05, Darron J. Schall
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Rick Bullotta
wrote:
>
> >I also wouldn't be at all surprised to
see a Flex client based on the Java plug-in someday. When looking at the
Flex class models, it has a lot of similarities to Java rich client stuff - so
who knows - maybe the Flash viewer someday becomes classes deployed on a JVM!
> >
> >
> I'd actually be *very* surprised to see
this. There was a Flash Player
> written in Java a long time ago that
supported swf version 2. It was
> horrendously slow, and therefore
abandoned. Granted Java has made some
> performance improvements since then, but how
does moving from the Flash
> Player to the JVM help at all?
>
> Flash is already available on a ton of
devices, and Java's "write once
> run anywhere" mantra didn't pan out as
much as Sun wanted it to
> especially in the mobile space. Flash
is more portable in it's current
> codebase then it would be as a Java
application, and it also runs faster
> as native code anyway. I don't see any
reason why MM would want to
> invest the time in a Flash Player that runs
on top of the JVM since it
> doesn't buy them performance or portability,
but rather just a new
> series of headaches.
>
> -d
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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