Mike, But Microsoft owns the whole stack from the OS down to the programming languages themselves.... Adobe is a different sort of company.
-Mark -----Original Message----- From: Mike Chabot [mailto:mcha...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 12:15 AM To: cf-talk Subject: Re: why is cf_builder so expensive? I disagree with the suggestion that the technologies major companies decide to use is unimportant to developers. I am active in the Microsoft developer and database communities and I can say with certainty that Microsoft makes a big deal about how they use their own technologies to power their company. The phrase "we eat our own dog food" is used all the time in Microsoft presentations. Scott Guthrie seems to mention this in every talk he gives. I have heard "we use the technology ourselves" used as a selling point for SQL Server 2008, Exchange 2010, IIS 7, Visual Studio 2010, WPF, Silverlight, SQL Azure, and other well known technologies. In fact, for every Microsoft technology I can think of that is targeted at IT people, one of the main selling points is "we use this product ourselves so we are motivated to make it better by our own internal IT staff." When Microsoft does not use one of their own promoted in-house technologies for something, such as not using WPF for MS Office 2010, the criticism is loud and widespread. The Microsoft developer community erupted with criticism a couple months ago when Bob Muglia, who was one of the top guys at MS until recently, publicly expressed Microsoft's commitment for HTML 5, a non-Microsoft technology and a direct competitor to Microsoft's in-house technologies. If you don't typically see these types of issues discussed with tech companies other than Adobe, it is because publicly using competing products normally should not happen. When Steve Jobs appears on stage, he has an iPod in his pocket, a MacBook on the podium, and a Keynote presentation on the big screen. If he showed up with a Zune, a computer running Windows 7, and a PowerPoint presentation, it would absolutely be a popular topic of conversation. The fact that Microsoft uses their own technologies is a big deal to me. Upgrading a mission critical database is always risky. The fact that Microsoft used SQL Server 2008 to power their own Web sites and applications, even while the product was still under development, gave me added confidence that SQL Server 2008 was stable enough to use right after it was released for sale. One of the reasons a Microsoft manager said that Silverlight/WPF advanced as fast as it did was because Visual Studio 2010 was built on the Windows Presentation Foundation framework, and feedback/pressure from their own VS2010 development team was used to rapidly advance Silverlight to the v4 version. Based on my knowledge of the inner workings of certain large organizations, there is typically huge pressure on managers to not be seen using competing products. The CEO of Coca-Cola will never be seen enjoying a Pepsi. Steve Balmer will never be seen talking on an iPhone. If someone handed him one he would smash it on the ground as quickly and as forcefully as he could. Adobe appears to lack the same internal pressure and competitive spirit that exists in other successful large corporations. Adobe has an excuse in that they acquired most of their major development products, but that excuse cannot be used forever. -Mike Chabot http://www.linkedin.com/in/chabot <http://www.linkedin.com/in/chabot> On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 10:44 PM, Dave Watts <dwa...@figleaf.com> wrote: > if you go on mailing lists for those other products, > you don't find developers talking about what's used on what web sites, > and how that reflects on anything meaningful. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:341626 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
