First, I took it as a tongue-in-cheek comment telling us of the added support in DreamweaverMX. Only he can conform/deny this.
Second, the word "merger" did not appear in his post, only in the replies. Third. CFML as a language is open-source, so how could MM become litigious over others use or support if CFML? Fourth: swf format is not proprietary either. There are multiple tool publishers that can create swf files that can be viewed by FlashPlayer. Flash player is, however proprietary, and MM would jump all over anyone who tried to hijack that. On the other hand, thanks to FP wide distribution, there would be no need to. Macromedia does not compete with Microsoft, instead it supports their platform, and this is a good thing, too. As for litigation, especially that with SUN as the plaintiff, the final long term outcome remains to be seen. IMHO Sun actually hurt themselves by winning a battle or two, but the War is still being waged. It will be a very big precedent if in the end, Microsoft is required to incorporates a competitor's technology into theirs. I would speculate that by the time that ever happens, Microsoft will OWN the technology. All of us recognize that Microsoft is spending the big marketing bucks to push .NET, and there is a pretty big percentage of users that will adopt the platform. Tool makers are wise to add support, or risk being left in the dust. RAD (Rapid Application Development) is a term coined by Microsoft, in the marketing of Visual Studio. It behooves competitors to incorporate features that will compete with and support RAD. He who has the simplest (read: flattest learning curve) will remain a viable alternative to the technologies that are being advanced. Macromedia is one toolmaker who is committed to being at the forefront of RAD, and thanks to this commitment, we developers still have a future. There is a statistic that has been around for a long time, and that is that around 70% of applications developed are basically broken, will not work as intended, or are shelved due to the learning curve required by the end user. The software publishers are hell bent on their trying to be in the remaining 30%. Some will make it, and a lot won't. Another consideration is licensing costs which are steadily on the increase. Coupled with training costs, it is very expensive for a company to adopt new technology, train its developers, and deploy applications. It is even tougher for the independent developer to obtain the tools that re deemed necessary to stay up with trends. Put this together with the weird patent situation, and litigation, it seems that everyone is going in different directions. Perhaps this is a good thing, but I, for one, am not so sure. Oracle as a database product has pretty well succeeded in re-inventing itself and has picked up quite a bit of market share. One thing helping them is that developer copies of the software are available free to the developer to assist in lowering costs of learning the technology. The demand for Oracle developers is increasing exponentially as they continue to sell enterprise licensing, especially to the Government. As for Web applications and interface, it is a good thing that Macromedia supports Oracle with their tools. This is my .01 worth of philosophy for a Sunday morning. | > | > | > He wasn't opening that old debate, he was commenting on the | > MM site demonstrating support for ASP.NET and PHP on their web site. | | Are you sure: I took it (as many other did) that he was commenting on | the specific URL MScromedia.com being active. | | Even if not - PHP support would have nothing to do with MS taking over | Macromedia (and the very existence of a PHP initiative seems to speak | against it). | | However neither does a .NET initiative speak to a future merger. Both | Allaire and Macromedia have a long history of application/OS | agnotiscism. Flash runs on everything and has for a long time. | ColdFusion supports anything you could throw at it (and will continue to | do so). Finally (and this is the topic at Macromedia.com) DreamWeaver | has always been a broad-based, multi-language development tool. | | Even with their own standards Macromedia has shown a striking lack of | litigiousness: both Flash and CFML have been used by other tool vendors | and MM seems to be pretty comfortable with that (unlike Sun and Java for | example). | | In general the point always seems to have been: "If you can't beat them, | join them" when it comes to technology. Not in the sense of mere with | them, of course, but in the sense of supporting whatever the big few | throw out. | | Jim Davis | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
