ColdFusion: How Misconceptions Continue to Plague It
For the love of God, it REALLY gets old. I jet on over to the Smith Project Digg posting to Digg it up and read more about it. As I look through the comments, it just refreshes my memory as to how LITTLE people actually know about ColdFusion and how misconceptions about the app server & language continue to plague its acceptance.
Here's a juicy tidbit from a misinformed:
"Who's using CF these days? The only major site I've noticed running it lately has been MySpace, and it doesn't seem to be working too well for them. Anyone know of any major sites that are using it?"
Adobe recently posted a HUGE list of top companies and sites using ColdFusion here: World's Top Companies Use ColdFusion MX
It just floors me how people jump to conclusions without doing absolutely ANY homework. Couple that with the religious-zealoutry of some of the PHP & Rails coder and it just completely degrades an otherwise cool posting about Smith. Pathetic...
I think everyone knows that I am a BIG fan of BlueDragon and New Atlanta (especially the Adobe folks from what I understand). Apart from them having an amazing CFML application server, they also go out of their way to market the engine and meet users. Just recently, I met up with Josh Adams of New Atlanta. He had come down to the South Florida CFUG to do a preso on BD 7.0. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend but Josh made it a point to meet with me the next day just so that I could offer my perspective on BD, ColdFusion, and the state of CF development. That's the type of stuff that I think is sorely lacking from the Adobe side. Adobe has Ben Forta, which is an absolutely awesome evangelist for CF, but 1 person can't be everywhere and considering Adobe's size and financial resources, there should be many more "Ben Fortas" on the road evangelizing about CF.
Now, for all of the trolls that will come on over and start griping about my post, let me be clear that this is not an attack on ColdFusion but it is most certainly a message to Adobe to step up and do better in getting the word out about ColdFusion. It may not make me any friends at Adobe (which is not my intention) but if it helps in any way to get ColdFusion more exposure and kill these misconceptions, I'll take the hit.
I think having Tim Buntel back will definitely make a big impact and hopefully, Adobe will back him up with some marketing dollars as well.
I agree that a big marketing push to a) get the ColdFusion name out there b) clear up old misconceptions would be very beneficial to the platform. And I'd love to see Ben Forta (or his clone) at our ColdFusion user group meeting :)
Tim and Ben are both preparing trips to user groups right now to start promoting ColdFusion 8. I think that will help, but Adobe really needs to look at how some of these other scripting languages have been marketed. Python and Ruby, both scripting languages, have been gaining popularity over Java and C#. ColdFusion is a scripting language, and I would argue easier to use than Python or RoR. Adobe should be able to leverage that increase interest in developing web applications using scripting languages.
Right now ColdFusion has about a 6% market share. That should be higher when you look at the other languages that compete with ColdFusion.
for example, what's that 6% based on? sales? can't really be considering that PHP and Ruby don't really cost. implementation? ok... but is it just external public facing sites? do they consider intranets (where we know that... for whatever reason... CF is pretty prominent)?
just sayin'. 87% of statistics are meaningless :)
http://digg.com/general_sciences/11_Most_Important...
(Startups can often afford one-on-one face-to-face, but the support policies change when they start getting customers... communication channels change with scale.)
jd/adobe
Maybe they should visit .net / RoR, Java, etc - user groups??
I'd also say 37 Signals built a great suite of applications on RoR which helped spread the word. Adobe needs the killer ColdFusion/Flex application...
John - very true! I can remember when I could email Nick Bradbury about Homesite issues! :)
You're certainly right about support policies and 1 to 1 relationships. I saw the same thing happen with PowerBuilder when Sybase bought them. The one thing that shouldn't change is the effort to actively and effectively promote the product. Thats where Adobe is lacking. All that's ever heard from Adobe involves Flex, Photoshop or LiveCycle. Nary a mention of ColdFusion unless its coupled with Flex.
We hear on occasion how important CF is and thats its a money maker. The hard part is actually seeing how this could be a reality when you rarely see write ups in trade magazines or advertisements on leading developer websites and scarce involvement with clients, developers and user groups that have been so committed to the product. A lot of people have made a huge investment into ColdFusion and its REALLY hard not to see its caretaker getting the word out past the existing customer base. Do you think thats an unreasonable request? Seriously, am I asking for too much of Adobe to give more exposure to ColdFusion?
John, I'm saddened that out of everything that I wrote in my post, you really focused on my New Atlanta comment but didn't give any feedback on what Adobe is doing to improve ColdFusion's exposure. I am honestly not trying to make this into a NA vs Adobe thing (I swear).
I'm trying to point out what NA is doing *right* for the ColdFusion community and part of that is their attention to their customers. They go out and meet people and actively look for feedback. They do demos at user groups and come down for client sales meetings. This is the type of stuff that Allaire did. And this is the type of things that I would love Adobe to do.
So telling me that "communication channels change with scale" kind of leaves more questions than answers. Are you saying that Adobe can't do it because they're too big or won't do it because there's no cost benefit?
Finally, I know for fact (because I've been told by a friend at Adobe) that I'm not on the "most favored" list at Adobe because I'm so direct in my views. But I would like you and the rest of the Adobe team to understand that if I didn't truly love ColdFusion, I wouldn't be griping as much as I do. I've invested 8 years of my life into this technology, including teaching ColdFusion for Allaire and as a member of Team Allaire, and have no desire to see ColdFusion go away. So what I would really like from you is some type of indication as to what's being done to grow the ColdFusion user base. I'm just not seeing it at the moment.
New Atlanta is a 10-year old company (founded in 1997, and profitable every year except 1997) with over 12,000 customers in 80 countries, including one of the world's most popular web sites (MySpace.com) and one of the leading Java/J2EE enterprise companies (BEA, who chose to license and rebrand BlueDragon as their own product). This March will mark the fifth anniversary of the introduction of BlueDragon, which is now well entrenched in the marketplace and continues to enjoy very nice revenue growth. I'm not sure the adjective "start-up" really fits, our support policies have not changed over the years, and I don't expect them to change as we continue to be successful.
One example is that eBags has now been using BlueDragon for what ... 2 years?
I also spoke with Tim about the fact we need (at least) a Ben Forta and a Tim Buntel in every geographical region ... not a Ben and Tim to cover the entire globe. Here in the UK (and throughout Europe) ColdFusion was completely ignored by Macromedia, and even now largely ignored by Adobe. They have no sales or engineer staff (OK, there may be one but I haven't heard from him in ages) who can honestly tackle ColdFusion issues.
All the Adobe guys I know here in the UK are based around Flash/Flex/LiveCycle. In fact, at the Adobe Developer Day last August (somewhere in England) there wasn't a single mention of ColdFusion on the agenda. At a Developer event!!! Oh, want to work for Adobe Consulting EMEA? They've been advertising for a number of jobs over the past 6 months and NONE of them have even remotely been ColdFusion orientated. And if anyone from Adobe tries to tell me there isn't enough demand for ColdFusion consulting stafff in EMEA, I'll ram a bag of coal so far up their rear end, they'll be spitting diamonds for a month!
Another pet hate of mine is the mantra "Flex is great for ColdFusion. They work great together. They go hand in hand". Excellent, great! Can I have an consultant/engineer in EMEA who can walk me through this? Em, no.... none of them deal with ColdFusion and are all out there pushing Java, or even PHP.
Sorry ... this has turned into a rant, and I normally save these for Tim :)
However ... apparently *things* are slowly starting to happen in the UK (a quote from Ben Forta), and we've managed to get Adobe (albeit via Tim) heavily involved in the Scotch on the Rocks conference in Edinburgh, Scotland at the end of May.
Maybe we just need to give it more time?
The CT Adobe User Groups are having some issues trying to visits during that tour because they cannot guarantee a large enough crowd.
I personally don't see how a Scorpio CFUG tour will help spread the product any more (or less) than the tours done around past releases of ColdFusion.
(Not to turn this into BD vs CF, but New Atlanta will be sending Josh down for a presentation at each CT group )
On the flip side though, the fact that the biggest roadshow for new releases is to go round the User Groups makes me wonder if Adobe are content to go after repeat business and aren't too bothered about whether they find new customers. Obviously we have our big conferences as well, but again, it's really just preaching to the choir.
Why is it we don't see CF being taken for a spin at other non-Adobe/CF conferences or roadshows. Take the AjaxWorld conference for example. Adobe will have a presence there, and will also be presenting on Flex. Why is no one there talking about ColdFusion and Ajax?
I'd still like to see Ben come visit our TACFUG :)
Again, glad to see that others share my pain.
I view advertising in CFDJ / FAQU the same way I view the User Group tour. It helps to support the community that is supporting you, and it keeps you fresh in the mind of your current 'clients'.
( In the previous sentence, 'you' is Adobe). I think there is a benefit in this kind of advertising.
However, sometimes it feels like that is the only kind of marketing that Adobe does.
My one other thought, is that most companies put a big marketing push associated with a product release. Has there been a major CF release since Adobe took over? Maybe we'll see a big marketing push when Scorpio turns into CF8.
I done an informal survey back in November about what the UK CF community thought of Adobe (and Macromedia) and their commitment to ColdFusion in the UK (and indeed Europe). I asked about Pre/After sales, Technical support, marketing, promotion.
I passed the results onto Adobe.
There wasn't a single positive answer. In fact, there were even a few alarming responses... to quote, "I didn't even know there was an Adobe in the UK", "I phoned Adobe UK and was told ColdFusion had been discontinued", etc ... you get the drift.
So in the UK, Adobe have a LOT of work to do with existing customers. Now if they can just stop fellating Flex for a moment, maybe they can give CF some love and attention.
So I'm in partially in agreement with you and I hope that Scorpio is given a nice launch. As for the ads in CF magazines, I guess I would be more understanding if those *weren't* the only publications receiving CF love from Adobe. What about Ajax Developers Journal, Web Developer (UK) or Software Development? They need to expand their reach and spread those marketing dollars to attract new customers. They're not doing that.
Excellent reply my man.
Although as others have pointed out - you don't necessarily need traditional advertising (which is really expensive) if Adobe could come out with some kind of unique 'spread the word' campaign and generate interest via word of mouth that would work as well... I think everyone agrees they need to branch out and target others besides the existing CF crowd...
or isn't that argument worth much coverage in the IT press now-a-days, wot with RonR, et al?
But, I do think the comments about the user group tour are a little unfair. I think that I have probably presented to our user groups more than anyone else over the past decade, and I've traveled and spoken to all sorts of user groups, including many very small ones, some with just a handful of attendees (actually, the first 3 stops on the last tour all had under 30 attendees if I recall correctly). And Tim and others have done the same. We did set the bar higher this time because there are so many groups that wanted in, and I already had to expand the allocated time from 4 weeks to 6 weeks (yes, 6 weeks of user groups back to back to back, with one week looking like it will have 7 user group presentations in a single week!) - with all that demand we opted to try and reach the largest number of developers. And I think that that's appropriate. But we will visit lots of smaller groups on the way - just like we have always done.
--- Ben
I can see your concern but I really don't think anyone doubts the dedication that you and Tim have to serving the CF community. From what I've read, I think everyone is frustrated that its *only* you and Tim doing the meetings. Aoart from the fact that it certainly puts a ton of pressure on you and Tim, it makes it MUCH harder for user groups to get some of your time. You know it better than most the UGs thrive on good content but even more so on good speakers. You're one of the best and people just want your time. Nothing motivates a UG like knowing that Ben Forta or Tim Buntel are coming in for a preso.
So I can understand their frustrations and I'm sure you can as well.
but, sadly, having a healthy CFUG (which we have here) has been no help at all with my orginisation turning it's back on it's multiple CF7 enterprise licences and phasing it out right across the board. No amount of support from us CF developers here has counted that (how can it?).
We've recently moved our CFUG venue to a multimedia training college in the city with a view to encouraging students to come along (currently taught PHP) with full support by the college's management. I've had direct proof that getting CF into students has introduced it to a new organisation. Not a big winner, but sucess none the less.
in our city we're copping it from all sides: Microsoft bullying in government purchases means the closing down of CF dev units. Alternatively, there's a dire shortage of good CF developers forcing project managers to look at other technologies (.NET, RonR).
but while CF has gone for good from my workplace, there *are* sucess stories. E.g: a large organisation origionally using CF with Java getting the decree that CF was to "go" a couple of years ago. But the replacement of Java/JSP was a painful failure - CF's RAD and ROI winning hands down. So now it's JSP on the outer and they''re happy to pay for site-wide (unlimited number) CF enterprise licences. Want details?
In other words these are business cases, made by managers and not developers. And I am mearly a little CF coder being tossed along the tide.
For mid-large companies, the price tag of ColdFusion is not a real problem, the license is bundled with other things such as development costs, team and etc, its not an issue. I also believe Adobe is doing good job marketing CF to these companies too (ok, we could have some Ben and Tim clones around, but that's not a big concern imho). But when we talk about spreading ColdFusion to a higher level, to a larger mass, to increase its popularity, market-share, whatever, we must understand that ColdFusion technology *must be* available as an option to more hosting companies. I want to see hosting companies offering CF just as it offers PHP, ASP and .NET. I want to offer CF to my customers and not to worry about where to host it (and even if the server will support CF in the long term).
I see a serious lack of initiative from Adobe into this key-market. Afaik Adobe is doing very little (and can do more). People will say GoDaddy is offering ColdFusion as optional and will mention a few others. Nice, but this is a result of Adobe marketing or its only Godadddy's reply to its customer needs? What happens to other hosting companies, including the small ones? Lets keep the niche-players such as Hostmysite, CFdynamics, out for now.
That's exactly one of the main critics regarding Adobe and CF here in Brazil. I personally have a good example from the Macromedia time (I can't say a word about Adobe). Back in 2003 a very know hosting company (in fact the largest one in latin america - www.locaweb.com.br - currently hosting more than 150k sites/apps) called me to talk about supporting ColdFusion MX (at the time they offered CF5 as an optional - and a expensive one). The idea was to offer CF into their plans free of charge. At that time Microsoft was introducing Windows 2003, IIS6 and .NET 1.0 into the shared market hosting. Microsoft proposed Locaweb a few (5 as far I can remember) 2k3 licences for free (initially). In return Locaweb offered its servers, staff and included the .NET into their windows plans free of charge. After a year, the initial 5 licenses turned into a large number of users. Microsoft sold many licenses after the few free ones, Locaweb gained customers and the technology gained popularity in a win-win relationship. Ok, Macromedia (and also Adobe) isn't Microsoft, but Locaweb asked Macromedia for a SINGLE CF Enterprise version to do the same Microsoft did with IIS6/.NET. What Macromedia replied? NO, but as a "counterpart", Macromedia offered the hosting alliance partnership program (I can't remember the exact term) to Locaweb. I also can't remember the price for this program, but it cost that time much more than a single CF enterprise license. Locaweb only asked for a *single* CF license (at that time they are hosting a few clients in CF5 in two servers) to promote the technology and gain users - and then buy extra licenses from Macromedia. Macromedia said NO many times. After this total failure of strategical interest (imho) from Macromedia (I'm not saying the problem is Macromedia Brazil - remember: they reported directly to Macromedia USA) I never heard about this issue again. Locaweb bought a few CF enterprise licenses (6.1 and also 7.x), Macromedia satisfied it's immediate-selling impulse, and Locaweb continued to offer CF as an expensive extra (U$ 30 per month). No need to say that they stopped to offer the product for good in 2006. Among other things, they also stopped offering it because of the lack of Macromedia ColdFusion support in the country (Adobe hasn't a CF speciallist who speaks portuguese - nor spanish afaik) - if you want to talk to the ones who really know the product, you have to pay a fortune for a single incidence (and in english).
Adobe must place ColdFusion as an option for hosting companies, otherwise CF will continue to be the intranets preferable server-side technology, never reaching the "outside" world. I'm not sure how this can be done (as a program, as more aggressive selling strategy, etc), what I know is that something must be done. My 2 cents to the discussion.
I work in a company where java and jsp are the sole languages for our product. I'm in a small out-of-the-box thinking group that contains one developer and 2 graphic artists. one of the graphic artists wanted to get his feet wet with programming. He picked up CF so quickly, it helped out alot. When he tried to do some PHP, he exclaimed, "wtf? why is this so cryptic?" ahhaha Then we have the rest of the engineering team who look at me quizzically when I mention, "yeah I did that in CF". I keep getting, "we need to convert you to java and jsp"
sigh....