That's a very good question, and one I personally spend lots of time looking at. And I can't give you a definitive answer, but I'll make a few observations (and the following are my own thoughts, not necessarily Macromedia's):
* CF has never dominated in job postings, even 7-8 years ago when there were not a lot of alternatives. I have copies of similar messages dated in the 90's, I couldn't explain it well then and I can't now either. * CF is not new and sexy, job listings follow technology trends and the hype curve. Remember when not having an MCSE, for example, was critical to IT jobs? Nowadays MCSE is insignificant. ASP.NET is new and hot and so it'll dominate, like Java did a few years ago. This is true of the publishing world too, by the way. Java books are not selling anymore, .NET books are. 3 years ago Java books were the best-sellers. New is sexy, for better or for worse. * One trend I have noticed, and this does affects contract CF work big time, is a movement away from contract work. More and more CF work is being pulled back in house. This is good news (perhaps, see the next point) to those of you with CF jobs, but for those of you who do CF contract work it has gotten tougher, and it'll get worse I think. I am even seeing this in the Federal Government, which in the past relied on contractors heavily. In the past two weeks I have received three messages from Gov agencies looking to employ CF developers to take over former contract work. * Coupled with the reduced demand for contractors, there is also a lot less hiring going on in general. Lots of employed CF developers are telling me that their teams have been cut and they have more work to do. It is job security perhaps, but tough on those seeking jobs. * Plus, while we are selling lots of CF, we are selling lots of that CF to existing shops (additional servers, additional departments, etc.). And while that is indicative of greater CF use it does necessarily translate into more CF jobs. * Furthermore, I know one placement company (one of the biggest) who in principal no longer looks for CF developers. Why? Because as they explained it, they had far too many prospects who were total beginners resulting in failed placements making them look bad. They switched to asking for "2-3 years of Java powered Internet application development" with the understanding that any decent Java developer could learn CF in no time and end up using CF and Java (or at least applying Java disciplines to CF work). As I said, no definitive answer, just lots of anecdotes. Make of them as you see fit. And diversify (thanks Rey). And one last point, several times in this thread broad statements were made claiming that ASP.NET is stealing sales away from ColdFusion. I have no idea how to prove or disprove that one way or another. We have no idea how many ColdFusion developers there are (we guestimate it), and Microsoft can not truly know how many ASP or ASP.NET developers there are either. But what I do know is that that claim flies in the face of ColdFusion sales. I have gotten in trouble before over sharing financial information, Macromedia has a very strict policy when it comes to sharing anything financial (to comply with SEC restrictions I believe). And so unfortunately I cannot give specifics as much as I'd love to, but I will tell you that if you believe that CF sales are plummeting (due to ASP.NET or anything else) you'd be very wrong. I have asked for permission to share some specifics, and if I get that permission I will share. Bottom line, ASP.NET is indeed doing well, but the numbers do not equate to the hypotheses that it is at ColdFusion's expense. --- Ben -----Original Message----- From: Will Tomlinson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 13, 2004 5:29 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: CF vs ASP.NET! GET YOUR FRESH POPCORRRRN!! To everyone that posted to this thread, Forta, Corfield, all the CF'ers like me. I'm TIRED of seeing a ton of job listings for ASP.NET and a few for CF!! I'm TIRED of it! What's going on here?? Could someone please explain this phenomenon to me without discussing irrelevant information! If you do nothing else, do this. Go to dice.com, you know the site. Run a search for "coldfusion"! Here are the results: Jobs 1 - 30 of 201 matching your search request. Run a search for "ASP.NET". Here are those results: Jobs 1 - 30 of 1353 matching your search request. Is anyone else getting it other than me??? Stop attacking me and take off your blinders. Watts? Forta? Corfield? Do any of you have an explanation for those search results?? And I don't want to hear "type in Cold Fusion and you'll get more results". You get 206 with that one. Whoop dee doo!! I'm done! Will ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Special thanks to the CF Community Suite Silver Sponsor - CFDynamics http://www.cfdynamics.com Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:187497 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
