I wasn't in the least upset, Adam. I just thought the
posting merited a rather strong response since I so vociferously
disagree.
In the panel discussion you mentioned, I tried to clearly
explain that my read was that Adobe would continue to push ColdFusion technology
as a major part ofwhat at that time was called their "network publishing"
initiativeand integrate it fully with LiveCycle since it was such a
natural fit. The mobile pieces in ColdFusionhad already begun prior to the
merger, and while Adobe continues to be a driving force in that area and is
clearly not abandoning it, that industry is filled with it's own ecosystem
challenges. History has made it clear that the conjectures I made at that panel
have proven largely accurate.
LiveCycle is about as stagnant as IRS tax forms and FDA
drug submittals. If the IRS never changes another tax form, the FDA never
changes a drug submittal procedure, ACORD insurance forms never change again,
and the hundreds of major enterprises that have adopted LiveCycle technology
decide to rip and replace their solutions with purely Microsoft code, then
perhaps it's fair to call LiveCycle stagnant. In my opinion, that's just another
trolling attempt.
I know LiveCycle has never been more exciting. I'm glad I
spent as much time with it as I did, and even well-respected ColdFusion tech
shops like FigLeaf are clearly committing serious resources to it. LiveCycle is
far from stagnant. LiveCycle 8 new features were shown at Max, and stagnant
products don't receive millions in RD investment from publicly traded
companies. Have you even purchased Acrobat 8 yet?
What's more, it's clear to me that the release of the
XPAAJ.jar file (which previously was only available with a $50K and up LiveCycle
server licensing fee, prior to the merger)and the ease of integration with
ColdFusion, as well as the free license to deploy apps based on it on the
Internet (if you own ColdFusion) make ColdFusion based PDF forms processing and
workflowapplications one of the best areas for ColdFusion developers to
focus on. Whether you want to call it LiveCycle or just the evolution of
PDF-based workflow applications makes no difference, but it's
totallyinaccurate to call LiveCycle stagnant. Livecycle and ColdFusion are
both vibrant, highly relevant technologies and it's never, ever, been a better
time to be a developer for either one of these two closely related
technologies.
I wonder just how many actual users of InfoPath Microsoft
has. I'd be willing to bet it's not even 1% of the users of Adobe Reader. I
wouldn't venture to call InfoPath stagnant or irrelevant, it's just clear to me
that Adobe PDF remains the de facto standard for unified document distribution
and publishing both in professional prepress (the world where I come from) and
on the web. LiveCycle server side technology, as well as ColdFusion, are clearly
a very strong part of that business solution platform..
While you are right that occasionally publicly traded
companies get some pressure from stockholders to show quarterly results, Adobe
has never been a company to be overly concerned about such short term metrics,
and it's stock is dong quite well. Bruce has more than enough control within
that organization to see his strategicinitiatives through to completion
without having to worry about some sort of imaginary shareholder revolt. As an
Adobe shareholder myself, I'm delighted with the company's performance and I
would venture to guess that most other shareholders are quite satisfied with
it's approximately 400% increase in value since the dot come
meltdown.
It's also worth mentioning that for some reason, my MSFT
shares haven't gained much value at all over that sametime period. Some
might even use the word "stagnant" to describe the long term performance of MSFT
graphically displayed using Flex technology by somelittle company, I
forgot, (oh yeah, I think they arecalled Yahoo!, but we all know a company
like that would never adopt some clearly inferior technology like Flex, so I
must be wrong on that one as well), at
http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart1:symbol=adbe;range=5y;compare=msft;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;logscale=on;source=
- Sterling
P.S. I still love octopus! When well done it's one of my
favorite types of sushi. We shouldn't wait 3 years for another dinner! But I
like all kinds of food, so I'm cool with wherever you pick if you want to get
together again before another 3 years pass. In any case, I'll be looking forward
to January 2010.
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Adam ChurvisSent: Wednesday, November 08, 2006
9:51 AMTo: discussion@acfug.orgSubject: Re: [ACFUG
Discuss] Adobe Donating Flash Scripting Engine to Mozilla
Wow, Sterling -- I didn't mean to piss you off like
that!
Do you remember that ACFUG meeting after the merger was
announced, where you were on the
