Mike, I also agree with you, and on another list I basically showed the same concerns as you are now. I had a heated discussion with Sean Corfield over this as well.
Sean argued that the sales of Coldfusion are stronger than ever, however if that is the case then why is there so few jobs? I tried to point out the same thing you did in this post, that in Australia that Coldfusion is not promoted to its fullest, companies don't see it as being a strong competitor for the same reasons that you outlined. After not being in I.T. for a few years a was looking at getting back to what I had missed, it took me nearly 12 months to land a coldfusion developer position and that was because there are very few jobs. I still keep an active eye on this market, and again tried to point this out to Sean Corfield that how can he claim that the market is strong if there is no push from Macromedia, and that the jobs are not there. I argued that if there are no jobs then there is no demand for the technology, no jobs people will not want to learn it and learn what the market is strong in. Macromedia has to be more active towards this market in Australia, and maybe the rest of the world (I can only really see what it's like in Australia) and promote it against the other languages that are out there. Anyway Mike, it's good to see that another long time developer is also showing the same concerns as well. Regards, Andrew Scott Technical Officer Nusphere Pty. Ltd. www.nusphere.com.au -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike Kear Sent: Wednesday, 17 November 2004 7:32 AM To: CFAussie Mailing List Subject: [cfaussie] 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/
