Microsoft To Acquire Macromedia? 531
perly-king-69 writes "The Register is reporting that 'industry sources' say that Microsoft have Macromedia in their sights. Whilst it could just be holiday gossip, if they do pull it off it could have a significant impact on the cross-browser compatibility of Flash applications."
Not the end of the world (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not the end of the world (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not the end of the world (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not the end of the world (Score:2)
Re:Not the end of the world (Score:3, Insightful)
Crap... (Score:2)
Re:Not the end of the world (Score:3, Interesting)
What do you mean "too bad"? Anything that quickens the demise of Flash is to be welcomed. It fills a useless middle ground between animated GIFs and Java applets, and is only used for particularly irritating ads, and by particularly irritating self-proclaimed "creatives". I can only hope that Bill Gates was surfing the web one day, saw a Flash banner and decided to kill this annoying "technology" once and for all.
Re:Not the end of the world (Score:2)
And its not just flash, there is another Macromedia product that I'm far more worried about Microsoft getting their hands on: Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver has quickly become the standard HTML editor. Can you imagine what's going to happen if it starts making code like Frontpage does now?
My bet is that Bill and Friends have their eyes on Dreamweaver more than Macromedia.
Re:Not the end of the world (Score:2)
Dreamweaver is the prize! (Score:4, Interesting)
My bet is that Bill and Friends have their eyes on Dreamweaver more than Macromedia.
Don't know about the US press, but the reviews I've read over here in the UK regarding UltraDev (and subquently of Dreamweaver MX) are of the opinion that they are the tool for web development, and leave FrontPage in the dust.
In fact, one commentator over here, John Honeyball, writing in PC Pro, went as far as to say that Macromedia, with their MX products, put Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET to shame when it came to doing web development with IIS/ASP and
Of course, being in a position to 'persaude' ColdFusion shops to move to
Re:Dreamweaver is the prize! (Score:3, Funny)
This page proudly created with NOTEPAD.EXE
Re:Not the end of the world (Score:4, Insightful)
Dreamweaver is what MS has their sights set one -- not Flash. Think about it. MS pretty much controls the browser end of things through IE. What they don't control is the creation of webpages. Most of the industry that I've been in contact with have a very low opinion of Frontpage, but a very high opinion of Dreamweaver (when it comes to GUI HTML editors). Acquiring Macromedia will allow them to either integrate Dreamweaver into Frontpage, or kill it altogether. Either way, the acquisition gives them a major hold on the webpage creation industry.
It would also give them a chance to crush Cold Fusion once-and-for-all...replacing it with ASP.NET, of course... (not that I see many CF sites anymore - most are either ASP, JSP, or PHP nowadays)
Flash would just be frosting.
Re:Not the end of the world (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not the end of the world (Score:2)
Unfortunately. I can not begin to describe the immense hatred I have for Flash, but it is on par with pop-ups and pop-unders. Fortunately, Mozilla is quite nice and has allowed me to disable Flash mostly (woohoo!) and thus allows get away from all the horrible sites who abuse Flash. Flash as a concept might be recovered though, as soon as people realize that Flash is made for ANIMATIONS, not entire goddamned websites. It is impossible to link to a document embedded in Flash, it is impossible to bookmark in-site thing for the same reason. Is is impossible to turn of the Flash music that get enforced through my speakers and I am not even going to mention printing information in a Flash file. And most Flash sites just are a disaster to use because the book "Flash for Idiots" doesn't handle basic GUI design (apparently).
So right now, I hope that Flash dies a slow horrible death along with Quicktime and Realmedia Player.
Re:Not the end of the world (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately I have three letters that indicate that this is not the case. Here they are
But there is a more important reason to get REAL WORRIED by this tech.
Dreamweaver has become an equaliser of tech for serverside stuff.
Dreamweaver does coldfusion brilliantly;- No shit... It's macromedia tech. But it's the fact that Dreamweaver MX is probably the ONLY true PHP+MySQL aware+compliant wysiwig editor. This is not because of a minority share for said platform, but because adobe & MICROSOFT have other agendas.
If we lose dreamweaver, we lose the fact that a HUGE amount of mid-range content will not work with mozilla, and will not work with apache. If we lose dreamweaver, we lose yet another independant platform to microsoft.
And if we lose dreamweaver, we lose yet one more way that the average dumb-joe can escape microsoft.
Think about it, and then post ideas on how we can block this.
Anti-competition laws suggest that we can. It's up to US to figure HOW.
Let's do it.
uh oh (Score:3, Insightful)
As it is now, flash is a relatively open format, there's just no good OS flash players. But if Microsoft were to acquire them, I think flash would remain an open format for about 30 seconds. Then only Mac OS and Windows users would be able to browse a very significant portion of the web.
Re:uh oh (Score:2)
Not if Microsoft was really successful in killing flash completely.
I want someone to write a dummy flash plug in that does absolutely nothing, apart from stop the stupid 'do you want to download the latest Meglomedia Flash crud plug in and have adverts that take over your entire computer screen just because they can, oh and if you say no we will ask again in 30 seconds or less' dialog box.
Re:uh oh (Score:2, Insightful)
Truly, the ironic thing is that you like to visit the sites with those Flash advertisements on them. Is it Macromedia's fault? Are there just some malicious random people sneaking Flash advertisements into good, humble folk's Web sites?
NO! THE WEBSITES YOU ARE VISITING ARE TO BLAME. IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE ADVERTISEMENTS, DON'T BLAME MACROMEDIA. BLAME THE PANSY-ASS FUCKING WEBSITE THAT YOU INSIST ON VISITING AND THEN SAYING "OH GEE GOLLY GOSH I HATE THIS DARNEDED FLASH CONTRAPTION, WHY MUST IT TAKE OVER THIS LOVELY INNOCENT WEBSITE???".
Flash masquerading (Score:2)
The reason that I stopped work on this when I did was because I ran into a dilema that I haven't thought of a good solution to. The problem is, there are many different types of sites that use flash:
I think the solution might be to modify the nullplugin that comes with Mozilla. This is the default plugin, and I believe this is the piece of code responsible for the "do you want to download" messages. When it asks you if you want to download a plugin of a certain type, it should have a checkbox that says "don't ask me again" and then it should remember that mime type (come to think of it, I'd be happy if it never prompted me for any mime types, so maybe I should just disable the prompt globally). It would be nice if it also picked the URLs out of the file on the web page so that you could bypass annoying intros as well.
Re:uh oh (Score:2)
Macromedia's faq:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/op
And their license page:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashpl
Also... the specification is open
http://www.openswf.org/
Re:uh oh (Score:2, Informative)
the file format is open and avaliable. the specification for the latest version (6) is avaliable here:
you can find more info on both at:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/open/l
mike chambers
mesh@macromedia.com
Re:uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
Does anyone else think that if this happened it would be the absolute worst thing that ever happened to the web?
No. A bunch of worse possibilities immediately leap to mind:
...but most of all....
-Rob
I already can't browse those sites. (Score:2)
Do you call that a "very significant portion of the web."? I don't.
-russ
Re:uh oh (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
J2EE Can't Be Replaced With Macromedia Fusion (Score:2)
It's because Macromedia Fusion / Flash focus is mainly on the visual part. Whereas J2EE offer a lot more than that.
If Microsoft were to coup Java using this acquisition, they would have to at least put some major effort to integrate this with their .NET framework.
Re:J2EE Can't Be Replaced With Macromedia Fusion (Score:4, Insightful)
- Mark
Macromedia Certified Advanced Coldfusion 5.0 Developer
remainder of my
Re:J2EE Can't Be Replaced With Macromedia Fusion (Score:2)
That's my whole point... Sorry if I didn't make it clear. Coldfusion MX can be thought as the "front-end". If we want to strip out J2EE, we have to replace the "back-end". So, if Microsoft want to coup Java, they have to put a major effort to integrate it with their dot NET. That's not that simple, IMHO, since the plugin version seems to forward the calls to the J2EE backend.
So, is it true that Coldfusion MX (server version) can run stand alone without J2EE (or other backend) and still can process whatever things J2EE can do?
Re:J2EE Can't Be Replaced With Macromedia Fusion (Score:4, Insightful)
I completely agree with you. Most of the people here don't seem to realize that there is a lot more to Macromedia than Flash. Since Macromedia's purchase of ColdFusion and their release of the MX line, ColdFusion has become a real player in the data-driven server market. The conversion to java has helped deal with a lot of speed issues that previous CF servers had.
Now, seeing as how Microsoft has not been a big pal of Java, I doubt that they would support and extend the use of ColdFusion after acquiring Macromedia. Rather I could see them stripping it for parts and integrating some stuff with ASP while leaving ColdFusion to rot.
-Dan
Macromedia Certified ColdFusion 5.0 Developer
no fucking way! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well I suppose laws are made to be broken.
Re:no fucking way! (Score:5, Interesting)
If Microsoft makes Flash proprietary... (Score:5, Interesting)
IMHO, any proprietary format on the Internet is bad. Flash is all very well for doing supplementary things (games etc) but not for features essential to the operation of a website. Common sense would tell you not to use Flash for content provision, but people seem to think otherwise.
It is most likely, however, that either this deal will not go ahead, or that MS will keep the standard fairly open. Remember, MS are moving towards semi-open standards -
Re:If Microsoft makes Flash proprietary... (Score:3, Funny)
The Flash angle is interesting ... (Score:3, Insightful)
But I don't think it's the whole story. If Microsoft acquires Macromedia, they also get their graphics tools, which, while much less widely used than Adobe's, are generally well-regarded. Ggraphic artists have been talking for years about how nice it is to work in an area not dominated by Microsoft (and yes, Adobe can be just as evil -- but let's be practical here; they just don't have the raw power Microsoft does.) This could be Microsoft's bid to swallow up the last major area of the desktop market they don't yet dominate.
Re:The Flash angle is interesting ... (Score:2)
Re your second point: see "start pushing it aggressively on PC," above. Right now, Adobe dominates on both platforms. Er, remember WordPerfect Corp.? Microsoft is incredibly patient, and they have the resources to challenge the market leader in just about any market segment.
I'm not saying I want this to happen, by any means. But it could.
Let's look back at history for a sec (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's look back at history for a sec (Score:4, Insightful)
Why on earth would millions of businesses, governments, and individuals want to go to all the trouble of migrating billions of documents from PDF (designed for forms and printed documents) to a 'standard' that's best known for making web sites more annoying and slower to load--and is available on fewer platforms?
Re:Let's look back at history for a sec (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe the answer to this is tied up with the same reasons why millions of people use other Microsoft products. One could ask why people would prefer a bugridden claptrap OS from Redmond over OS/2, which was far and away the better product for many years.
Why don't people look for the best solution to their needs, and instead look to what others are doing?
People don't want multiple platforms -- they want the rest of the world to conform to their own way of doing things. This replays in politics, religion, culture, etc. We're basically herd animals. All that Microsoft has to do is gain a marketplace majority, and the world will bleat a path to their doorstep.
Macintosh and Linux users are basically aberrations, which is why they will always be a minority, no matter how much better their respective systems are.
So if Microsoft can make it less convenient to use PDFs, and more convenient to use MDFs (Microsoft Document Format), and even offer a one-way compatibility to allow PDF users to migrate to MDF without converting, the game is won.
Powerpoint is the Document format of the Future. (puking noises)
Re:Let's look back at history for a sec (Score:3, Insightful)
a 'standard' that's best known for making web sites more annoying and slower to load
you're talking about PDF, right?
I'm all for it as an MX user (Score:2, Interesting)
Kill Flash! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Kill Flash! (Score:3, Troll)
Like MS wants to do something that would preserve sanity
Who do you want to own today? (Score:5, Interesting)
furthering
It would be sad to see another innovator get gobbled up, I've been impressed with macromedia since the ol' Director days, it just seems shitty when a big guy buys up a brand or name then tries to pawn it off as their own.
The saddest example of late is Infogrames [infogrames.com] trying to ride the name recognition of Atari [atari.com] of all things! WTF? LOL
Re:Who do you want to own today? (Score:2)
Sure, you can start developing Web Services(tm) in C# today if you want to.
Re:Who do you want to own today? (Score:5, Informative)
The way Macromind became Macromedia after they and Adobe split the Aldus software portfolio?
The way Macromedia bought Flash from Futuresplash?
Ask yourself whatever happened to Extreme 3D, SoundEdit and Xres...
This would be very bad... (Score:2, Insightful)
Cold Fusion is much, much easier to develop and deploy web apps for than ASP or JSP.
Microsoft should be happy with just being the number one software company...why do they need to rule the world too?
Might be good for prototyping, but that's about it (Score:2)
Now take into consideration that this is happening NIGHTLY. And it doesn't always come back up on its own. Due to the poor model that we have (ie, no one watches the systems save for 7am-7pm weekdays), this has resulted in multi-day outages on the weekends. Luckily, I'm not the one getting the 2am phone calls anymore, but when I hear that they want to put more and more things over on Coldfusion, I'd prefer it they had a stable system first.
Oh -- and I don't like their security model...I heard it's not so server-centric in MX, but well, before that, if someone with access to one directory knew the datasource name used by someone else on that system, they could muck with someone else's data. I'd prefer to see some sort of chrooting for the CFFILE commands, and access restrictions by directory, not for the system as a whole.
[And a daemon that doesn't keep crashing... but well, I'm off on another project, so someone else has had to be the one talking to Macromedia support on a regular basis.]
Supposedly, ColdFusion doesn't have these problems under windows [we're using Solaris], but then I've got to deal with Windows crashing, too.
Well, must get past DoJ (Score:4, Insightful)
Suppose that some "public interest" suggestion could be put to bear on MS acquiring companies in related fields....
Re:Well, must get past DoJ (Score:3, Flamebait)
Microsoft has given a lot of money to the Republican party, so it's safe to assume that Ashcroft won't block this acquisition....
Steve
Where extremely annoying ads are concerned.. (Score:2, Funny)
This would not be a bad thing. Now to get rid of animated gifs, who do they need to buy up and lock only into IE to spare us from those?
And there goes flash, down the drain (Score:2)
It's just one step less if you wanna force down
Folks this is a rumor (Score:5, Insightful)
This also assumes Macromedia wants to be bought by Microsoft, even if MS is attempting a hostile bid Macromedia may go looking for a white knight.
I could see IBM, Adobe, or Sun ending up with Macromedia in the end.
Re:Folks this is a rumor (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Folks this is a rumor (Score:2)
Adobe would probably be the best fit. Imagine the product portfolio they'd have if they acquired Macromedia: Photoshop, Pagemaker, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Acrobat. An impressive yet focused lineup.
Dreamweaver, Microsoft, standards (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dreamweaver, Microsoft, standards (Score:3, Interesting)
We use Frontpage, Dreamweaver, and Homesite. Our Communications team uses Frontpage with an IIS webserver to keep Daily Bulletins and some reference material maintained (these people have NO HTML knowledge). Our external site maintainers use Dreamweaver with Vignette and IPlanet servers for more dynamic content. Our more technical intranet sites are maintained using Homesite and Websphere, giving significant control over the code. I think eventually we'll be moving everything into Websphere/Eclipse development.
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? Excuse me? Flash is anywhere *near* J2EE? Last I looked, Flash is entirely orthogonol to J2EE. It is just a media/presentation layer. That's like saying HTML or SMIL just took a step closer to J2EE. Nonsense.
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Flash is anywhere *near* J2EE? Last I looked, Flash is entirely orthogonol to J2EE. It is just a media/presentation layer. That's like saying HTML or SMIL just took a step closer to J2EE. Nonsense.
Sounds like you haven't looked at Flash MX [macromedia.com]. Lots of data-handling, XML support, and talking to application layers. It works transparently with ColdFusion MX as backend through the Flash Remoting technology. There are Rich Text Editors, calendar plug-ins, FTP clients, etc. for Flash MX. Macromedia calls the new Flash stuff "rich Internet applications."
More fuel for the Anti-Trust Holdouts? (Score:4, Interesting)
In Other News. . . (Score:5, Funny)
cross-browser compatibility? (Score:2)
Re:cross-browser compatibility? (Score:2)
Who Cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Kent
Wish that also worked for TV. (Score:2)
Is it legal (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess this probably would end up as legal and not any kind of Monopoly issue because they probably didn't reference Macromedia in the previous lawsuit.
Since they were not specifically targeted in the previous legal action, the lawyers would probably argue that it's not applicable to apply the monopoly conviction when considering the legality of a macromedia acquisition. It's all in how you spin it.
I have yet to see anything that MicroSoft has touched be anything other than messed up. Maybe they will buy Macromedia. But if they do you can fully expect that they will have every intention of leveraging it to maximizing there benefit in any markets available.
I think you are overlooking the value of Flash on cellular phones. Microsoft is making a huge push to get this market pulled from Verizon and a few others. Flash will simply allow them to leverage it better into their product line.
You need to start thinking about Microsoft in the same terms that they consider themselves. To think of them as a Internet based company is ignorant. They are out to acquire a piece of every single form of communication, media interaction, and information delivery.
They are in the Internet, Television, Game-Stations, Corporate and Personal Information Structures, PDA's. They are pushing hard to get involved in Cellular technology and even Vehicles.
With the introduction of MicroSoft into the Cars and Phones, they will have a foot hold on the home, office, person, and cars. I don't know that there will be much else left.
Re:Is it legal (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a cellular phone. I think it's already reasonably valuable to me. It allows me to do things that I can do with my regular telephone, like initiate and receive telephone calls. It would be nice if it worked in Europe, but that's the way it goes.
Why do I need Flash on my phone? It already makes the web more annoying--does it have to bother me everywhere else, too?
Whilst slightly off-topic... (Score:4, Interesting)
Would this mean we'll still never see a Flash authoring tool for Linux?
There was a Slashdot article about this before.
Oh protect me (Score:5, Interesting)
Like that's the biggest impact.
I work in Web development, in a DreamWeaver shop. Macromedia has its faults, but it's a company that does understand the perspective of its buyers. There are lots of little ways something like that shows up. Suffice it to say, at a Macromedia sales spiel the engineer really means it when she says she'll submit your suggestion to the development group. DreamWeaver and FireWorks, in particular, really reflect the sensibilities of Web developers much better than their competition. The company gets it, or mostly gets it anyway.
They'd already started down the road of updates to revamp the interface for no particular reason -- we haven't bitten on the Mx versions of anything yet. That's leaving alone Flash. Loads of developers, here's a clue, despise Flash the way it's used on most sites right now. The number of Marketing Department "splash pages" out there as index pages to sites is chilling. That's technology for its own sake, at the expense of maintainability. We hate that stuff. The people who make those are in Marketing, not IT, and they're still at the point where their Web site is a transposition of a brochure.
But dang, if Microsoft buys this company out, we're screwed. I've used Word since 1986, and since version 5.1a or so, the changes to that program haven't reflected the average user in any way. Microsoft is too big and too... I don't know what... to understand its users. I've touched FrontPage a few times, and it's painfully bad -- mostly it's an excuse to push asp extensions on your server or (better) IIE on an NT box.
Indifference to the user, inability to see from the point of view of the user, is the hallmark of that company. And I'm the user. Shite.
From the article... (Score:2, Interesting)
Neither Macromedia or Microsoft were available for comment
Uh oh... I hate when I read that because it very often means that the "announcement" is true. Their PR departments have probably been put on hold while the execs finalize the agreement...
The big days of Flash are over. (Score:4, Interesting)
Until less then a year ago there was no way you could get CSS working the way it was intended on spec-release about 7 years ago. Flash was the *only* way to get a consistent visual apperance across Browsers with solid fonts and stuff that went beyond table-slicing (tables not being intended for pushing pics around anyway).
Flash was *the* tool to actually achieve what CSS promised for so long. With nearly every browser finally fully CSS 2 compliant, this is now a non-issue and put's flash in the extra gadget area so many slashdotters allways suspected it in. With SVG - a format that's substancially easyer to handle in the dynamic content serving dept. - and open architecture web 3D poppingup left right and center and the mighty Java Media Framework finally out, asskick competition for flash is closing in.
Considering this and the fact that the Uber-Web Tool Dreamweaver had it's days when it's templates where the next best thing to the then expensive and unwieldy dynamic content servers this is might actually be the wrong time for M$ to purchase Macromedia. Macromedia never got the curve to professional level tools, Dreamweaver aside. Flash MX coding is as crappy as ever, Director 8.5 still tops the hitlist as the most bizare software joke under the sun, PHP kicks Cold Fusion up and down the street and no f*ckin' way is Kava or JRun gonna stand against Suns free libs and the ever-growing Netbeans popularity combined with the bazillion and one Java/Apache OSS projects.
Bottom Line: I kinda hope that M$ buys Macromedia and drives it against the wall at full speed. Hideously bloated with ColdFusion-ASP-MX.NET intergration or whatever they think might be a cool name for a dead-end product strategy.
Re:The big days of Flash are over. (Score:4, Insightful)
Macromedia and Microsoft would make a good match (Score:2)
-russ
EU Competition Commission (Score:3, Informative)
CFML, PHP, ASP, JSP and Flash (Score:3, Insightful)
What this will mean for DW and Flash is that MS will slowly, in one or two versions, phase out PHP and JSP intergration (they'll claim that the "customers" don't want it) and they'll add MSSQL, IIS, Frontpage and Office integration, by default, thereby making most webpages not work in other browsers or on other server platforms. They'll start adding "extras" into Flash (.NET automatic webservices and scan-your-drive-for-pirated-music stuff for free). They'll probably make a crippled version of the Flash plugin for the Mac in order to avoid the anti-trust complaints and kill the Linux one. They will almost certainly kill off the Mac versions of the MX suite ("because the sales there are so small" they'll say).
However, this will probably backfire nicely in MS's face. Coldfusion, in spite of it's ease (I've used it and it is easy), has become a major deadweight in the company, due to the advances in PHP. There is no real reason today to go for ColdFusion, given that it is expensive and the tags are proprietry. Flash already has a pretty good competitor for animated vector stuff with Livemotion2.0 from Adobe and *new* Flash only sites have all but died out because the ergonomics of the web dictate that you have to design for compatibility and therefore almost every Flash site has to have a HTML version accompanying it and that pushes up development costs and companies don't have money today for luxuries as they did in the dotcom days. This generally restricts Flash to be used as a tool for making animations.
Adobe could counter a buy out like this quite nicely in that they release their own version of the Flash plugin, thereby becoming the "standard" in web graphics that they have been running after for so long. In the resulting confusion and chaos in Webplugins, which "standard" do you think would win? MS tried this with DHTML, and even though they 95% of the browser market they don't have a monopoly on authoring, as almost all sites code for standards these days.
Mainly this would lose Adobe another competitor, because MS would certainly botch any attempt to gain designers with an MS version of Freehand. just as they have botched almost every attempt to make a competitor to Photoshop.
not just Flash! (Score:3, Insightful)
* Fireworks and Freehand -- software for creating graphics. Maybe MS wants to take on Adobe (Photoshop, Illustrator)?
* Contribute -- a content-management system that lets you publish to the web without knowing HTML. As someone who has worked on many clients' websites, I can tell you this is going to be *big*.
and, since the Macromedia bought Allaire, they could get these too:
* ColdFusion -- a widely-used, tag-based web application server and language (and the easiest to learn, at that). Unlike ASP, it comes with things like administrating through a web interface, sending email, uploading files, verity searches, etc.
* JRun -- a popular J2EE Server.
* Homesite -- a great text editor that isn't as bulky as VS
It's about killing Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
Game over.
I must once again point out... (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, I gotta give some credit [centurytel.net] for that one.
Flash (Score:3, Interesting)
Flash Remoting is what Java applets should have been - a thick client techonology that works. Using Flash Remoting it is possible to make calls to serverside software components directly over HTTP. It's quite extrodinary to be able to invoke a method on an a server object from inside a client side script and get back a cached result set from a database. Right now Flash Remoting supporte both
It's obvious that integration of this with
Hopefully the FTC will put the deep six on this - it's an extremely anti-competitive merger.
Noooooooooo!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Developers use Dreamweaver to wrie cross platform code taht integrates with ColdFusion (which can be installed on a variety of platfors, and can connect to a variety of DB servers) and can include Flash components which run on almost all browsers, and can get data form a HUGE variety of platform indepenant sources.
Tomorrow:
The Mac versions lag behind the windows versions. The Windows versions get "extended" functionality... but only if CF is running on WinXP, and the DB it connects to is MS SQL Server. You can *still* use other things, but it's a huge pain in the ass.
Next Week:
No more Mac versions. Flash plugin is Active-X only, and can get data only from
I can only hope Macromedia looks beyond quick cash flow and actally gives a shit about the Web. Then again, given the sad state of "profit trumps all other decisions" corporate action the US is going through... *sigh*
PLEASE DON'T SELL YOUR SOUL TO THE DEVIL MACORMEDIA!!!
Re:MacroMedia, Borland, Rational (Score:4, Funny)
As a CF Programmer, (Score:2, Interesting)
On a bright side, I'm glad CF's power is finally recognized:
"The ColdFusion web application server is regarded as superior to Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASPs) and even Santa Clara, California-based Sun's Java Server Pages (JSPs) because of its simplicity, power and completeness. ColdFusion MX, meanwhile, uses ColdFusion Mark-up Language (CFML) tags that compile to Java."
Re:MacroMedia, Borland, Rational (Score:3, Interesting)
The monopolies watchers are asleep at the switch. Hadn't you noticed ... ?
Re:Are they willing to sell? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Are they willing to sell? (Score:2)
Re:Are they willing to sell? (Score:2, Interesting)
No, that is not a fact (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyways, I'd be more worried about cross-platform compatibility for anything with a Mac OS preference or that Apple is the vendor for. Quicktime, anyone? I'd sure love it is Apple would release Quicktime for Linux. Microsoft has a stronger record of cross-platform compatible products that some. They have to, by law. There are bigger and better things for them to crush (Java lawsuits with Sun being a good example), which is why they do paradoxical things like hand Apple a barrel of cash to stay afloat.
Re:No, that is not a fact (Score:3, Informative)
----
MS didnt "help out" apple (Score:2)
Mozilla vs Flash (Score:3, Informative)
However, Mozilla has much better (potentially in some future) vector presentation technology: SVG. It's better integrated to HTML/Javascript code around it. And it's really platform independent.
I think that the day Microsoft buys Macromedia, Flash will dye for Mozilla and many Mozilla developers will switch to SVG. Which is much better than Flash.
Re:Mozilla vs Flash (Score:2)
Don't only focus on the negative!! (Score:2)
The positive gain? MS Frontpage might just go away. Even if Frontpage wasn't replaced by Dreamweaver, I'm sure that the Dreamweaver influence would be good for Frontpage.
Re:Don't only focus on the negative!! (Score:2)
Code (Score:2)
Perhaps you just enjoy the masochism inherent in hand-coding.
Re:Don't only focus on the negative!! (Score:5, Funny)
</i><img src="pix.gif" width="1" height="1"></p style="messy">
<content type="MSWord" created="Microsft" data="useless"><include stylesheet="useless_bloated.css">What are you talking about? MS Word's save is <h1><'/h1>HTML is how I learned to write webpages. </p style="mozilla_noncompliant">
Re:MOZILLA is DEAD (Score:2)
In cold times you could use it to burn processors at maximum and keep computer warm.
Re:MOZILLA is DEAD (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If you can't beat 'm (Score:2, Funny)
Re:There's worse (Score:2)
Re:k thx bye bye (Score:2, Insightful)
And therein lies the problem. Flash/SWF has become the de facto standard and has all the momentum. Any 'competitor' is doomed to failure in terms of support from the mainstream (read non-geek) world. Witness OGG/Vorbis vs MP3. Go into the high street with £200 and try to buy a portable unit/CD Player/DVD Player that plays OGG files. They'll all do MP3 though...
It isn't good enough just to produce the format and libs. You have to convince at the very minimum content producers and PHBs that they should abandon their investment in Flash.
Flash _is_ useful and getting rid of it (as some posters propose) isn't going to happen. Granted, there is some spam swf around, but no-one is seriously considering abonding email becuase of spam email are they?!
Re:Could it be a good twist in the story for SVG? (Score:2)
Last time I checked it is. IIRC Adobe makes their products for Mac OS and Windows, that would make it cross-platform. I wouldn't hold my breath for a Linux port.