As a CF developer for many years, I often feel as if I work twice as hard selling my services to a potential small-biz client, than the closest PHP developer. Not only am I selling myself, I also *have to* sell CF.
>From my potential client's perspective, they really don't care much on how easy it would be for me, the CF developer, to code their project. They do care about (1) how much it will cost them on top of my fee; (2) how easy it would be to find help in case I am not available. We CF developers and zealots, of course, could make all the justification in the world to make the case of the points above in favor of CF. That is not the problem. The problem is that, why do I, the CF developer, need to keep on selling the advantages of CF to my clients. Shouldn't Adobe work twice as hard to reach out to the small businesses, so developers like me don't have to sell it (or at least make my selling efforts as easy as the PHP, .NET or the RoR guy)? > -----Original Message----- > From: Mary Jo Sminkey [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2008 12:10 PM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: Re: ColdFusion: Some People Just Don't Know Any Better > > >I'm not surprised. The big question continues to be "What can Adobe do > >to promote ColdFusion?" CF gets press on releases, and Adobe has > >actively and aggressively marketed toward the government IT sector for a > >few years now. I just want to see the articles that say "Yeah, we're > >migrating from .Net to ColdFusion. It's just a much more dynamic and > >integrated platform." > > The problem a lot of people are mentioning as well is lack of developers. > It becomes a vicious circle...developers jump to another platform because > there are more jobs, so it becomes harder for employers to find ones that > are experienced in CF, so they switch, which makes jobs even harder to > find, etc. So it really has to be a two-pronged attack...getting more > people to want to use CF for their sites, but also getting more developers > to learn it. And of course, trying to keep hosting options as well. I > really do think the cost of the server is an issue, when it comes to > getting more people on board. Certainly at the Enterprise-level it's not > an issue (or shouldn't be), but for small-time developers that want to run > their own box, it's a hard sell. And these are the folks that are needed > to really grow support for the platform. I ran into that just this week > with someone that was in college and wanted to learn my software and put > up a store using his own box. I might have been willing to do some kind of > educational discount, but the cost of ColdFusion pretty much made the > whole discussion moot. I'm hoping eventually Railo or SmithProject might > become more viable as low-cost options...but even if they do, they're > likely to be options only those of us that are already invested in CF will > know about. I imagine this is something a lot of us that sell CF > applications run into...if you sell a .Net or PHP application, it's not a > big deal who someone is hosting with, as the vast majority of hosts offer > these. If you have a CF application though, if a normal merchant finds you > through Google or some other application/script listing site, 9 times out > of 10 they are not going to be able to run your application because their > host doesn't run CF (or they are using...gasp...GoDaddy!) So before you > can even sell you on your application, you have to sell them on switching > hosts. It's a tough situation, for sure. It's one thing I really liked > with the Railo licensing, which works with the way their server can > configure different "webs" as separate entities and then license each > individually, versus a more costly full-priced server. It's a great low- > cost entry that is attractive to a small developer, while still requiring > someone that is using the server to host many sites to pay a reasonable > price. > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:298263 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
