Vince, It is clear you've built a viable product, but I have some pretty big concerns about BD as a long-term CF'er.
First of all, CF has survived on the strength and viability of the company that has developed it - Allaire now Macromedia. How does diluting MM's income stream (and thereby potentially threatening its viability) help the language? The marketing clout of MM and its garnered goodwill in the business world is a big part of why CF is considered a viable solution by many. Regardless of anyone's opinion of MM as a corporation, they have navigated some pretty difficult waters and remained viable - a substantial accomplishment. Secondly, how does developing different versions of CF from different vendors help the language? Lack of standardization can be a huge downside for the marketing of a product. Thirdly, aren't you trading on the good name and reputation of CF? The good name and reputation that was created by the efforts and dollars Allaire/Macromedia (and represents a substantial asset). Are you in any way compensating MM for this? Do you think you should? It isn't as though CF was ever promoted as an open-source solution - I would think it is the intellectual property of MM? If so, how is it legal to "add features" to core CF? Doesn't this get borderline into Sun Vs. MS type stuff? You can of course say that competition is a good thing and it is - but there is already tons of competition in the application server space. I have doubts as to whether diluting efforts within the scope of this application server technology benefits us as a developer community (whose livelihood substantially depends currently on the viability of MM and its marketing clout). Maybe its all good, but I really need to be convinced of this. Jeff > That's an interesting perspective that I hadn't considered. I guess the fact > that we have a free version (including one that now supports CFCs, XML, and > Web Services), could give the impression that BD is a "poor man's CF". (I'm > not sure what you mean by "its ilk" since I don't think there's anything > quite like BlueDragon on the market). > > But the majority of BlueDragon sales have been to enterprise-level customers > who are deploying on J2EE servers. They're finding that BD provides better > "native" integration with the J2EE platform than CFMX (an area where we're > different!), and are using BD to improve the robustness, performance, and > scalability of their CFML applications. These are also the customers who are > asking of for features that aren't in CFMX. > > So it turns out that BD is primarily (at this point anyway), a "rich man's > CF" for enterprise-level customers. If you're not such a customer, I could > see why you'd have missed this and might be less interested in BD. > > As far as BD being a "competitive alternative" to CFMX, I don't really look > at it that way. Our goal is to have BD do things that CFMX can't do, in > order to give people the opportunity to use CFML where they otherwise might > be forced to use a different technology. > > For example, we have customers who needed to move to a J2EE environment and > first did an analysis of CFMX and determined it didn't meet their needs. > They were preparing to rewrite their application into JSP when they > discovered BlueDragon. Now they're continuing to use CFML instead of > converting to JSP. I see that as a win for the customer, for New Atlanta, > and for the entire CFML community (and yes, even a win for Macromedia, who > now has an opportunity to "win back" that customer in the future; if the > customer had converted to JSP, they'd have been lost as a CFML customer > forever). > > Similarly, there are people who are considering rewriting their existing > CFML applications in ASP.NET; with BlueDragon.NET we'll give these people > the alternative to continue using CFML in the .NET environment. > > Anyway, sorry if this is a little "marketing-ish", but you seem to be > expressing some negative (contemptuous, even?) views of BlueDragon that I > think are unwarranted. > > Regards, > > Vince Bonfanti > New Atlanta Communications, LLC > http://www.newatlanta.com > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of adam > > Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 2:23 AM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: RE: [CFCDev] OT: BD / CF > > > > > > >Why is this a slippery slope? Are you saying we shouldn't provide > > features our customers are asking for simply because they're > > not implemented in Macromedia's products? The very reason > > they're asking us for them is because they're not implemented > > in Macromedia's products! > > > > I guess it's just my outlook/opinion of BD (and its ilk). I > > see it as a "poor man's CF", rather than an competitive > > alternative, so I figure it should just do *exactly* the same > > thing, just cheaper. > > > > I also guess that's not where you see yourself positioned, > > so... yeah, fair call... Knock yourself out: be different. > > > > Adam > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------- > You are subscribed to cfcdev. 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