Unfortunately we don't all live, or want to live, in Sydney :) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim McAuliffe Sent: Wednesday, 17 November 2004 9:00 PM To: CFAussie Mailing List Subject: [cfaussie] Re: Macromedia gives up on the server market in Australia and walks away.
Mike, I have to agree with Mark and Matt. I've been contracting for the last 3 years and I've never seen as much CF work as there is now. In the last month alone I've had to turn down 3 CF jobs - all CFMX and all with excellent companies in Sydney. Two of the companies I've worked for in the last year have complained about a lack of good CF developers out there forcing them to look at other technologies. Why isn't your phone ringing? Something else to think about - when was the last time you got a call from a Microsoft sales rep about buying a SQL Server license? It's a product in roughly the same price range as ColdFusion. They can't sell it directly to small businesses because the margin isn't there to justify a dedicated sales force. MM's in the same boat. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Kear" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: cfaussie To: "CFAussie Mailing List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 7:32 AM Subject: Macromedia gives up on the server market in Australia and walks away. > > .. is this what we're going to be reading in the not-too-distant future? > > I'm sorry for the provocative subject in this post, but I think > there's a real danger that Macromedia will depart the server market in > Australia, leaving us all high and dry. I do hope this is not true. > If I'm mistaken and it's not true, I'll be delighted and I'll gladly > take all this back. > > Oh I know that Macromedia people all say "NO NO NO!!! Cold Fusion is a > core product for us!" but their actions dont appear to support this > -IN AUSTRALIA. (I'm not talking about other markets, they have little > or no relevance to us on a day-to-day level) If ColdFusion is such an > important part of the strategy, where is the activity? Perhaps > there's lots of activity, but I dont see it anywhere. > > I learned last night that Macromedia in Australia have ONE person > working on new ColdFusion server installations in Australia. ONE. > Can this possibly be true? One guy is supposed to take on Microsoft > and PHP? If ColdFusion is important to Macromedia in Australia, where > is the promotion? The advertising? Pr? Seminars? Trade shows? > Australian MM People at user groups? Australian MM people on CFAussie > and CF-TALK? ColdFusion doesnt have the 'sex appeal' of the RIAs and > Flex and these new fangled things, but for most of us it's the core of > our businesses. > > Few of the companies I've contacted this year have advanced to CFMX. > Most have stayed with CF5. Who is supposed to be trading these people > up to later servers? The distributors arent. They dont promote > ColdFusion at all as far as I can see. They'll gladly give you a > price if you ask for it, but that's not promotion/selling. That's > order taking. Who's doing selling? If the existing customers can't > be persuaded to move to CFMX, what's the point of having another new > server? Who is going to be trying to move the site owners to > Blackstone? > > One guy?? > > I tried to get a business going several years ago in servers, but > Macromedia and the distributor at the time, Firmware bashed that on > the head and bluntly said I wasnt allowed. (I tried to re-order a > subscription for a client and was told by Firmware's sales office that > resellers weren't permitted to sell subscriptions.) Either that's > still the rule, or no one cares to offer any > help/guidance/encouragement to get me to sell servers or upgrades. > And anyway the confusion over prices between the US web site and local > pricing makes it a risky business for a reseller anyway. > > So if it's not practical for resellers to sell server software, and > Macromedia here isnt selling servers, who the hell is? If they are > relying on the resellers to sell servers, where are the sales > briefings? The emails? The brochures in the mail? Promotional > offers? Marketing campaigns? Even a paragraph or two in the IT > section of the newspapers wouldnt be hard. > > I do hope I've got the wrong end of the stick here, and/or > misunderstood. But I'd like to know just what Macromedia are doing in > Australia to develop the server market. I've heard 'motherhood > statements' like "we're often talking to banks and major corporates > about servers". Oh yea? How many banks have coldfusion? The > Commonwealth Bank and Westpac dont even support "minor technologies > like coldfusion" in their payment gateways. > > What I fear is that Macromedia here in Australia are prepared to walk > away from the server business, believing it's too hard. I fear > they're going to roll over and concede defeat and just sell the > add-ons - the flex, the flash apps, the central and the development > tools. > > In which case I'm out of business too. > > One of the truths of the world we live in is that nothing stays the > same. If something doesnt grow it shrinks. If MM dont try to grow the > server business here, it's going to shrink, and all of us developers > will see our work shrink with it. > > Please .. please let me be wrong. > > -- > Cheers > Mike Kear > Windsor, NSW, Australia > AFP Webworks > http://afpwebworks.com > .com,.net,.org domains from AUD$20/Year > > --- You are currently subscribed to cfaussie as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aussie Macromedia Developers: http://lists.daemon.com.au/ --- You are currently subscribed to cfaussie as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aussie Macromedia Developers: http://lists.daemon.com.au/
