> From: Scott Raney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 10:55:37 -0700 (MST)
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: MetaCard review
>
> On Thu, 9 Dec 1999, David Bovill wrote:
>
> We're not as good about holding ours as we
> probably should be ;-)
>
It's an "open and closed" case... Open and ride on marketing hype, installed
user-base, followed by the big float. Or closed, and sell a "real' product,
the old-fashioned way...
>> I did not realise there were so few *licensed* versions of Director out
>> there. Poor old Macromedia. As this was there first product, which through a
>> brilliant "hyped" marketing strategy, enabled them to begin taking over a
>> large section of the software world...
>
> I think you maybe overestimate Director's importance.
...
> I meant no slight to Director which is a fine product for what it
> does, and it has managed to put most of its direct competitors out of
> business.
I never meant to say that Director ever made any "real' money. It's
importance was that in being "perceived" to be the first "cross-platform
multimedia authoring tool, Macromedia were in the position to raise the
finance to buy a suite of products that did make money.
>> Perhaps you should consider marketing MetaCard as "Director that can do
>> CGI's for everyone", and keep the corporate cross platform interface market
>> for your accountants -:)
>
> The number of people that would even understand "Director for CGIs" is
> probably pretty small (much smaller than the number that need a
> cross-platform application development tool).
...
> and it's installed base is
> probably less than 10% of that of Visual Basic or the top handful of
> Java tools combined. Probably less than 5% if you don't count pirate
> copies. The numbers are even more striking if you compare it with
> other types of applications, even other development tools such as
> FileMaker Pro.
We obviously live in different worlds. Every multimedia and web designer
that I know, or have employed in a variety of companies in London over the
last 10 years have had some experience with Director. Every training course
in the country, teaches Director (and now Flash). Every Internet &
Multimedia company that I have worked for have bought licensed copies of
Director (as have the training colleges and Universities).
In comparison a very small proportion of these companies and organisation
had licensed copies of Java, or Visual Basic. These were the tools of the
computing departments of larger businesses for their own internal networks.
The point here is that while there is considerable purchasing power, and
concentration of programming skills within "big" business, there are a large
number of small companies, and and even greater number of freelance
"multimedia designers" currently being trained (or on the job market
already), who if they had the ability to leverage their existing skills to
implement dynamic CGI based web sites for their clients, would choose to do
it themselves over calling in "hard to come by', "difficult", and
"expensive" programmers.
They would buy a *licensed* product to do this, and consider opting for CGI
based solutions where at the moment they may unwisely "push' their clients
towards "unnecessary" Shockwave/Flash solutions.
> As for the idea, maybe
> you should look into Flamethrower, a product that is supposed to be
> something like that. If you've never heard of it, I guess that's just
> evidence against the "build a better mouse trap" theory ;-)
Yes, I've heard of it (it is Mac based -:) - and that's the problem (and
your advantage). You can't use it for you clients web site unless you find a
Mac based hosting service (have you tried). So obviously no-one will be
interested (yet they have a full page screaming about the advantages!). Now
if it worked on Linux, and other platforms then... Now what was the name of
that company that had a product that ran on all these platforms?
They have the right idea though, and as you pointed me to look at their
site, I see that this is pretty well what I am aiming for with a MetaCard
based solution. The problem I will have is to "market" this to companies,
educational institutions, and hosting services. I mean if the company that
make the product don't really believe that this is a goer, then why should
anyone else buy into it? I can point them at your site, but there is nothing
their to sell the idea of using Metacard as a viable CGI solution (just a
foot note). Oh well, I'm sure your "marketing director" has something better
to do -:). By the way who is your marketing Director?
