A lot of stuff here, so let me hit the highlights. Scott, and dozens more of you, we love the fact that you love Flex. We have tens of thousands of hours of development time into this product and it's a wonderful validation of our work that you love it. And don't think we take that lightly. Working directly with all of you is the only way we got Flex to the loving shape its in. We will continue to work with you. Continue to listen to every word you write. We may not respond to every message (we don't) and we may not react as fast as you would like, but you will see us react.
Enough preamble, though it is all true. I read a couple of things here. On the OEM discussion. Our OEM licensing is very open and flexible. We really do recognize that companies are in all different sizes and places in their development. We want to get paid for the value OEMs will get from using our software, but sometimes we can't get paid until you do. This is exactly why I keep saying where you have a compelling model and there's something in it for everyone, let's talk. You'd be surprised to see the breadth of deals we do in that fashion, some would even work for your brilliant idea that didn't fly. To the broad discussion of transparency. We hear you. And others out there asking for the same thing. There are a few reasons to be concerned about giving away lots of details: US public company regulations, competition, rampant expectations, etc. But all of those are workable, of course. Over the coming months, I hope we can respond to your needs here with lots more openness. Over the past 6 months, you've seen more from Macromedia than in the past. You saw live demos of the Flash Player 8 a long time before its to be shipped which included feature descriptions, etc. While we'll never show everything, of course, we have more work to do and have lagged with Flex on this, admittedly, but we hope to make up for that over the next six months. Valid criticism. I appreciate that your mail gives us some broad directions to make sure we have covered. We'll be asking a LOT of people in the next few months what you need to know. I hope this helps you feel better about the immediate. For the long term, the only way to make you more comfortable is if our actions meet my words and your requests. Lucian -----Original Message----- From: Scott Barnes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 4:50 PM To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com Subject: [flexcoders] Ok, I am over defending the price hike now...heres why. Ok, I've always wondered about a few issue and i'm in a broody mood so i'll air it here: (heh) I'm a developer who would like to make productX, lets just say my productX is a great idea for me to believe in. Now if i am stupid enough right now to attack my dream with Flex as a front-end tier and lets assume it all comes together and works a treat. I then go to market with my idea, i look around and eventually I find 5 customers willing to buy that said product. What are my options in terms of approaching Macromedia? Do i go down the OEM route? last i heard it was like 12% of the total price tag (i sell at) and you had to commit to x-number of UNITS in purchase. That for me is THE number one question I get asked when people probe me for insight into why flex is great and is always followed up with a "yeah but how can i sell it to my clients". (I've been freely giving away advice / consultancy on FLEX and its power because i want more people using it to justify my personal investment in learning the product. Brisbane apparently has a few factions using it and i want more!) Now this could range from medoke web-site apps, CMS systems or into one big eBusiness off the shelf self deploy intranet system for a company to buy and then EXTEND outward. I know my company did just that, bought an intranet system and now they are extending outward to suite. Where is the innovation incubator - *I* know if i come up with a good idea, proove its working, i can then approach my local MM Sales team with it and they will give me an open honest answer - but thats me, i know that and the reason i know that as i've built up a relationship with them over the years. What i'm stating is wheres that encouragement in full public view, case studies and what not. Its like its one big secret and i have to ask why? its extremly harder for people like me to walk in and pitch it to people with buying power. MXDU 2005 by all reports had people shocked and excited that one vendor from Straker was able to get an apparent sweet deal on CFMX+FLEX in OEM? I heard more people talking about that then the freakin conference - which showed one thing, MM you have peoples attention with flex. I am not trying to be a pain in the butt and critical of the evil empire that which is Macromedia, just really curious as to why FLEX needs to be thise constant closed book and isn't as transparent as everyone seems to think. Where is its roadmap for the future? what can i expect post 1.5, where is your "In Development" - same concept that's worked for games, as silly as that may sound but its nice to see a vision for a change in applications instead of this closed off super secret beta (which is usually invite only and by the time you throw the public a bone and open it up to more beta tests usually its a little too late at this stage for feature enhancments) and then once THAT's finished you get bombarded with PR campaigns on how great it all is..then when you've sobered up you start to see whats really behind the looking glass. Admittedly, I've been given scraps of information that are held under NDA in terms of future of FLEX, and i will respect Macromedias wishes in not making them public, but i cannot even tell my fellow co-workers the information I know, and yet they need to be onboard with it and it's getting extremly frustrating to remain loyal to the product - and believe me, i do really enjoy working on this product. I can understand secrecy to a point but there is a gold mine of questions that go un-answered unless you probe the right people and it would be less of a hassle for people like me, who understand flex's real value to approach folk who are ripe and ready for the product (in that i don't make a comission on every product I sell, it makes my career easier to come to work each day and not face UI constraints but rather server-side issues which is where i am at my best). Price increase is just another hurdle i personally have to overcome *again* and its why i keep pushing the angle "bah if you're at a level at 15k anything more isn't a big deal as clearly your rich enough at this point and more concerned on how it will work for your future". That positive spin is starting to waiver now especially when i get hit with rebuttle after rebuttle and knowing what i do infact know and can see, i'm bound by keeping my mouth shut and just letting the masses echo at times the same mindless dribble. I get hit with all sorts of comparisons "What about AJAX...What about XAMLON... What About Apache Cocoon... What About Laszlo...What About .NET NO TOUCH DEPLOYMENT..etc" - and I can really see how easily these products look in terms of what they have on offer... they may never catchup or they may over take, but when you have these comparisons now with lots of promises attached to them and yet Macromedia remains tight lipped about FLEX? well...you can't but help at times to buy into it. Q. what are your plans in terms of FlashCom/Breeze and FLEX? (No more mindless meetings) Q. what are your plans in terms of Flash Lite / Mobile devices and FLEX (Execs would drool over this) Q. what are your plans in terms of Central and FLEX? (Intranets would love this) Q. what are your plans in terms of flash paper and Flex? (We still have docs to look after) Q. what are your plans in terms of future controls/containers for Flex (I need an iconic toolbar control because users are used to that thanks to OS - its a feature i logged a year ago). Q. what are your plans in terms of FlexBuilder or IDE fixes / enhancements (its crap product and everyone knows it - wheres this going?) Q. what are your plans in terms of deployment strategies for peacemeal swfs/exe (assume i make an app for my outside personnel to use that lets them into our internal systems but at a restricted rate..granted Central could be used in this flavour but hey...why not exe aswell) Q. what are your plans in terms of Robo-XYZ and FLEX (i can build apps, but now i have to build help documentation to back the apps up...hello???) I get these questions a lot "what are they gonna do with xyz and ya rekon they will put that into Flex mix? down the road" i tell them "i am pretty damn confident they will - thinking they would be mad not to" - yet i wouldn't bank the farm on it. It's not about cool factor either, flash lite for instance in a mobile world we are becoming, would be a huge benefit to FLEX as a product as if i could walk into a enterprise and say "you can get your price information via flash lite anywhere in range of your mobile device..." and then turn to a developer and go " you can re-use the same style of code to do that aswell but just have to limit your memory budgets"- you would get more people looking you up and down going "man this sounds too good to be true". I'm just saying that is getting harder rather then easier. 200 in December? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? - If people see 200 units of a product sold world wide at 12k as a major break through in sales for one calendar month... out of millions of pretty healthy financially secure corporations world wide? i mean... i'm shocked it was that low in truth i'm no economist and i won't pretend to be one - i just assumed it was more volume then that. I just want to bank on the bloody product for my future and I must confess, i still harbour doubts on whether i should fully commit my efforts to back this product or just put it into the "it was a great idea pile, but didn't have enough people buying into its dream". I am a self-confessed evangalist for the product in terms of what it offers but at the same time i resent the product for its silly negatives like price and secrecy. -- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.mossyblog.com http://www.flexcoder.com (Coming Soon) Yahoo! Groups Links Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
