> application! When you try to get cold fusion (or any language for that
> matter) to perform functions outside of its' skill set, thats when you
> start getting into trouble.
It depends on what you mean by the "next best software product". CF can't help you in terms of building desktop apps. So let's talk about Web apps.
There are two distinct categories into which I would divide Web-based applications- licensed software and software as a service (or as a platform to deliver a service). At this point, I don't think CF is the best choice for licensed software because you can't effectively protect your source code from competitors. This shortcoming will apparently be fixed in Blackstone. I would also note that Macromedia (and previously Allaire) do not have appear to have a corporate focus on licensing the CF runtime engine, though that may change as well. Lastly, because of the licensing cost of the CF runtime engine, your product would have to sell at least in the thousands of dollars (if not tens of thousands) per copy in order to give you any profit.
For software as a service- e.g. Hotmail, eBay, Yahoo- I would consider using CF. I would also consider other technologies, but I could strike several off the list immediately and basically leave three choices- CF, .NET, and Java. I would nix Perl, PHP, and anything else that lacks commercial support- that's purely a business decision and has nothing to do with the quality of any of those platforms.
Some people would argue against the licensing costs, but if we're talking about making real money with the software- into the tens of millions of dollars or more- software licensing is a small part of your overall cost structure.
I would probably go with a mix of CF and Java, but that's just me.
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