I like you're opinion.
Except the part about IBM and Microsoft developing similarly.
I'm not a Microsoft lover, but I used to be, long story. But since
I've recovered from the Ballmer dance most seen on YouTube, I kind of
like them now. I've done 4 ASP.Net projects, and 2 very large VB.Net
projects. My problem with MS in the 90's was them taking applications
written by the ISVs that made them popular, and including them one by
one as time went on, in the OS itself. The worst of this came in the
SUN v Microsoft debate. To actually see in discovery that they hacked
Java so it would perform poorly. Hopefully most of those people are
gone by now, and I hope, though will never know, that Gates now having
a family has changed his outlook on how he treats young grads. coming
out of college to start small businesses or freelance.
With Adobe and Scene7.com, do to their great Imaging applications and
history with users using applications like Lightroom, is see a very
real close together magnet here (as an analogy IBM, Microsoft and
others do highly sophisticated contracts that only they could do and
as far as a gauge for us being in the middle of 2 attracting magnets;
one being IBM for example and the other being the company we'd like to
serve; the magnets are far apart). But with Adobe those magnets are
very close together, and I see a very user friendly E-Commerce system
that almost directly mirrors the Adobe "Hybrid" Store, or the Full
Store, only even better, and incorporating possibly Edge and Grid
computing, as well as what Scene7 really was, as that is the way they
can color images.
So Adobe is on the road to producing an extremely easy to use
eCommerce application for the masses, and we will be left with
applications in other areas. But as time goes by, this will narrow
more and more. I've been in the business since 1988 when IBM chose me
over 8 other graduate applicants (and I was the only other undergrad
applicant) for a Windows project for an ATM Performance Analyzer with
the EE Dept. I was chosen because I showed up for the Interview with
the application 50% done.
So I went into Windows and I have to be careful about my story, but
there is a public article not of my doing here at FedCir "Federal
Circuit" / only I had to bow out because since I first met with them
in August of 2001 the following day I had a seizure and I've had a
seizure condition every since. Life is no longer a long and winding
yellow brook road for me, I'm doing things in music that help
Epilepsy, my SWF and CoreAudio, etc. development for the future will
be my future as I'm on Medicaid now. However, I did eventually get a
great eCommerce platform done, and it will last probably a year or so
and I'll get a client when I can (my income is capped anyway) and it
will be worth little after Scene7 is out for a few years.
So I have a very large perspective on this, and "it isn't looking
pretty".
If you research my past posts, you'll find extreme excitement by me
about AIR, asking Adobe to find a way to integrate OpenGL before
Silverlight leveraged DirectX against it.
Now I feel differently. The CEO resigned last Fall, and whoever is in
charge now has a different plan that effects us developers.
Scene7 attorneys, as far as I know, are "Thompson Reuters" in NYC and
Mary A. Fracis is the executing attorney on some of their issues, and
I've called her as well as people at Scene7 twice to get more clear on
the issues.
The 2nd call to Scene7 made very very clear that they do intend to do
exactly what I felt they would, only they call it "eCataloging" which
is a pre-cursor to doing anything eCommerce with the special imaging
that Scene7 does on, for example, changing the color of a sweater.
The difference is, Adobe is not bringing this to us as far as I was
told, they are, and I asked directly, "So is it possible that Adobe
could bid against another company using FLEX to do a contract for a
company?" (I used a shoe company earlier because Nike is one of their
many, many clients).
I'm not worried about bidding on Fortune 500, I'm worried about the
more and more often complaint of users who know more and more about
what's going on saying, No, I just bought Scene7 LE, for example, and
it makes it so easy. I don't need any custom development.
This single step that Adobe has taken has totally blurred the line
that would have never been blurred at Macromedia, Adobe is now both a
Premiere Imaging Firm, and a Firm using the very programming tools it
sells, not to integrate into a big operating system, but to Bid on
contracts using it, even against their own developer community, and in
the long run, AIR is virtually a "lightweight operating system" of
global proportions.
My thinking is that the new CEO of Adobe has lust in his eyes, but I
don't know that for a fact because I've never seen him.
All I know is, in my opinion, we we're all better off, at this step
taken now, with Macromedia. I've been developing in Flash since
FutureWave came out with FutureSplash; it's how I got the first WRIF
radio contract here in Detroit which got our company $2M in
advertising equity (not me, the consulting company I was working for),
and it's what got me many side jobs do to my name getting around that
I develop fast and good. That's no longer the case. I have a seizure
dis-order and only God knows how they came to be.
That's my 50-cent (no, not a fan :) but as a funny fact back in the
80's I'd run a route that directly crossed Eminem's house (it was an 8
mile route I ran during HS, College Summers, etc. until the place
became overloaded with homes.
-r
On Aug 30, 2008, at 6:02 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
There is a different way to look at this. Right now, Flash is still
just
and "on-line" technology in the view of most people. Even though AIR
does a lot of things, people still don't think it is very important.
Similar problem that Microsoft had with VB being considered only a
desktop tech and almost none taking it seriously as a server until
Microsoft built server based applications.
For me, Mass appeal of AIR is huge! It would mean that I can push Flex
as a Desktop as well as a Web application. It becomes the replacement
for VB and .net which then lets me solidify the build once/deploy
everywhere that we have been talking about since the early Java days.
I understand your concern that Adobe is doing similar things as you
are
however, Micorsoft, IBM, Oracle and most others also make a lot of
applications that are similar to what their developers build also. The
difference is customization as well as usage. I think if Adobe can
produce good desktop and Web applications that we can showcase, we
will
be able to move the market away from Microsoft and Sun and increase
the
viability of using Flex in corporations.
For me, at my company we were choosing between Silverlight, JavaFX,
Doja
and Flex. It was the fact that Microsoft had released Photoshop
Express
that helped to sell Flex.
That is my .02.
Robert Thompson wrote:
>
> I agree. Let's see what happens.
>
>
> Everyone here is an individual that can judge for themselves.
>
> I myself and quite concerned.
>
> I hope to be more informed than the Press Releases, White-paper and
> list of Clients already served by Adobe with a solution akin to the
> "Hybrid" or "Flex Store" and based on a high-performance platform.
>
> Great. But where does that FLEX mass-appeal product leave the
developers.
>
> If Scene7.com did it themselves great. But Adobe has purchased them,
> the CEO of Adobe resigned about the same time, and now we have a new
> Adobe who is building a hybrid lightweight operating system in AIR
> that I have been very excited about in the past in my posts here,
and
> in an OpenGL display framework (Papervision3D to the rescue), but
now
> Adobe has just added a new dimension to all of this....competition
in
> a very real sense against a developer, for example, bidding for a
> Small Running Shoe company. Do they choose Adobe Scene7 or do they
> choose a developer? Probably Adobe.
>
> A ran 8:52 for the 3200m in college, All SEC twice, and NCAA
> Division-1, 3rd place championship team, and had a good running
> career, which is why I brought up the example of a running shoe
store.
>
> -r
>
> **
> * *
