> In Australia? Are they? Does anyone outside Adobe know? I don't know about Australia. But that's entirely irrelevant to whether CF is on its last legs.
> Actually Dave, "Adobe people" = = "Adobe". You are 100% wrong in > that statement. Really? So if I grab any one of the thousands of Adobe employees, they'll all have the same opinion and vision for the company that the board of directors does? If I talk to someone on, say, the Photoshop team, they won't see things a bit differently from someone else on the Acrobat team? Everyone there will have the same perspective? > Steve Ballmer. Oh yea. Actually Steve Ballmer doesnt put > DEVELOPERS in front line sales positions. Those guys are called SALES > people. I think you missed the point. Sales people, by themselves, cannot make a product succeed or fail. It wasn't advertising and marketing that made CF as successful as it is, it was that developers embraced it. > I knew it wouldnt be long before someone told me this was all my > fault. I run a tiny development business. I havent sat idly by and > waited for the world to push dollars into my hand. As I said in the > outset, if I hadnt gone out and hustled my own opportunities I'd have > starved. I just wish I wasnt doing it all alone. No one is blaming you for, well, anything except starting another in a long list of "CF is dying" threads. But the amount of effort you've put into this thread would have been better spent on marketing yourself as a CF solution developer - doing a user group presentation. How many have you done lately? > If you're a Toyota dealer you dont do it alone. You get backup > support from the manufacturer. If you're a Dulux Paint dealer you > dont do it alone. You get backup support from the manufacturer. If > you're a Microsoft reseller you dont do it alone. You get FLOODED > with support from the manufacturer. If you're a McDonalds franchisee > you dont do it alone. You get backup support from the manufacturer. We're Adobe and Microsoft partners, and I don't see the vast difference that you see. But in any case, the two really aren't comparable, as nearly all Microsoft products exist to help sell Windows and Office. Adobe doesn't really have that sort of underlying base product to fall back on. As for the rest of your examples, let's just say that selling cars, paint and hamburgers is different from selling software. If you can't see the difference, I honestly don't know where to start. > If you're an Adobe dealer/reseller/developer in Australia you get > nothing, not even brochures. You dont get any support advertising > appearing in trade mags. You dont get any help developing sales > strategy unless you are prepared to tell a competitor about it all, > because the only thing they'll do to help is refer you to a > competitor. If you want to sell LiveCycle you get told to piss off. > If you need help to sell server products you get told to stop being > such a crybaby and get off your ass. All of those things have > happened to me personally while trying to make business for Adobe. Well, I don't know anything about how things are in Australia. But I can tell you that here in the US, Adobe helps those resellers who help themselves. I don't know any companies that would help my company develop a sales strategy. That's our job. Having done that, we might approach them for funding for specific marketing events, and historically that's worked out pretty well. As for LiveCycle, yeah, they pretty much want you to piss off, because it's INSANELY COMPLICATED and EXPENSIVE. Unless you're a big company, or you specialize in LiveCycle development, chances are you're not going to be qualified to sell it. And every LiveCycle sale is a big sale, because it's such an expensive product. So they sell it themselves. We do LiveCycle training and consulting, but we don't sell it ourselves either. Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software http://www.figleaf.com/ http://training.figleaf.com/ Fig Leaf Software is a Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) on GSA Schedule, and provides the highest caliber vendor-authorized instruction at our training c ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:329975 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
