IDE announced: IDE/Compiler Business Model

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 12:37 PM, Robert Harrison < robert@austin-williams.com> wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- I'm always curious when people make such definitive statements... - it's definitely hurting sales Do people really think that a corporation as large as Adobe makes decisions in a vacuum?  I'm not saying a big corporation is always right, but I'd tend to think that the people making the decisions have more information at their disposal and do take the information into consideration. - Developers are always willing to pay for an IDE/compiler Really?  In the thread on the recently-announced CF IDE (the thread that spawned this one), one developer unequivocally stated, "if it's more than $0, i'll stick with CFEclipse". As developers, we're passionate people.  We make statements based more on emotion than fact.  I believe there's less emotion in the board rooms where these decisions are made, and the decision-makers have a wealth of information at their disposal that we as outsiders are simply not aware of. It's easy for us to look at specific decisions as they affect us as developers and/or business owners and lose sight of the fact that there's a bigger picture out there. -- I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my life. I love my wife. And I wish you my kind of success.

> - it's definitely hurting sales I can't speak for you, but we've definitely lost a lot of CF sales because of the cost of the server side. A lot of client want to host their own. If the developers are losing sales I think that can reasonably translate into Adobe loosing sales. Robert B. Harrison Director of Interactive services Austin & Williams 125 Kennedy Drive, Suite 100 Hauppauge NY 11788 T : 631.231.6600 Ext. 119 F : 631.434.7022 www.austin-williams.com Great advertising can't be either/or... It must be &.

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 1:06 PM, Robert Harrison <robert@austin-williams.com ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- In that limited scenario, sure.  But how many customers are making purchases... which equates to revenue?  By providing a free version, Adobe loses that revenue and gains a few more customers (who are not providing any additional revenue). Again, I don't profess to have any profound insights as to the decision making process or the information available to those making the decisions. I'm just saying there's more to the story than what you or I see.  At least, i'd like to think so :) -- I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my life. I love my wife. And I wish you my kind of success.

Good Griefer said: > In that limited scenario, sure.  But how many customers are making > purchases... which equates to revenue?  By providing a free version, Adobe > loses that revenue and gains a few more customers (who are not providing any > additional revenue). Or to paraphrase: "Does it make sense to change our business model to give currently paying customers a freebie, in order to chase after people who are currently unwilling to pay?" -- s. isaac dealey  ^  new epoch isn't it time for a change?      ph: 781.769.0723 http://onTap.riaforge.org/blog

----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- Indeed :) -- I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my life. I love my wife. And I wish you my kind of success.

> > Or to paraphrase: "Does it make sense to change our business model to > > give currently paying customers a freebie, in order to chase after > > people who are currently unwilling to pay?" > > Indeed :) The major gist here being that, while they know for a fact that the current customers have continued to pay for the existing product, there is doubt as to how much revenue they would get from a new product if they suddenly changed the business model. It doesn't necessarily make changing the business model a bad decision, but it does mean there are strong incentives for "sticking" as it were in a sort of "Texas hold 'em" sense and they would need stronger evidence to support the idea that a new business model would generate more revenue in the long run. -- s. isaac dealey  ^  new epoch isn't it time for a change?      ph: 781.769.0723 http://onTap.riaforge.org/blog

> > - it's definitely hurting sales > > I can't speak for you, but we've definitely lost a lot of CF sales because > of the cost of the server side. A lot of client want to host their own. If > the developers are losing sales I think that can reasonably translate into > Adobe loosing sales. It is a mistake to assume that Adobe's interests are directly aligned with yours, just because you use their product. Adobe doesn't necessarily want to make a lot of sales. What they want, like any other sensible business, is to maximize their profit. If Adobe could maximize their profit on CF by selling one copy for, say, ten million dollars, that's probably what they'd do. Adobe, and Macromedia before them, have spent significant time and effort positioning CF as an enterprise product. That's the market in which they've expressed interest. It doesn't make sense to expect them to pursue the low-end market if their current approach is maximizing their profits, and it makes sense to assume that Adobe has a better gauge of the CF marketplace than you or I do on our own. It's worth noting that CF's competitors are either free and open-source (PHP, etc), or bundled with other things that someone wants to sell (.NET, arguably J2EE). Since Adobe isn't built around the services model embraced by many open-source vendors, and Adobe's not selling operating systems, neither of these approaches make a lot of sense for Adobe. Adobe has to make money from CF, since it doesn't make sense for CF to be a loss-leader of some sort. And it may well be the case that the best way for Adobe to make money from CF is to target the enterprise market. And even if that's not actually the case - something neither you nor I can definitively prove either way - if Adobe believes it to be true, it makes sense for them to do what they're doing. Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software http://www.figleaf.com/ Fig Leaf Software provides the highest caliber vendor-authorized instruction at our training centers in Washington DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore, Northern Virginia, or on-site at your location. Visit http://training.figleaf.com/ for more information!

That would be me :p Persoanlly I don't care whether they charge me for the server or the IDE, or perhaps even both as long as it's only roughly the same amount in total. I'm in the rather unique position of having one server licence and need of only one IDE. My point regarding cfeclipse is that it works really, REALLY well. So why should we I pay for something which seems at first glance to be very similar (at least in my mind). It's going to have to have some awesome extra features to make me part with my hard earned cash, I ssupect many other cfeclipse users feel the same. Craig. On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 12:37 PM, Robert Harrison < robert@austin-williams.com> wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- I'm always curious when people make such definitive statements... - it's definitely hurting sales Do people really think that a corporation as large as Adobe makes decisions in a vacuum?  I'm not saying a big corporation is always right, but I'd tend to think that the people making the decisions have more information at their disposal and do take the information into consideration. - Developers are always willing to pay for an IDE/compiler Really?  In the thread on the recently-announced CF IDE (the thread that spawned this one), one developer unequivocally stated, "if it's more than $0, i'll stick with CFEclipse". As developers, we're passionate people.  We make statements based more on emotion than fact.  I believe there's less emotion in the board rooms where these decisions are made, and the decision-makers have a wealth of information at their disposal that we as outsiders are simply not aware of. It's easy for us to look at specific decisions as they affect us as developers and/or business owners and lose sight of the fact that there's a bigger picture out there. -- I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my life. I love my wife. And I wish you my kind of success.

----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- But... you didn't say, "unless it offers compelling features over and above what CFEclipse offer, I can't see paying for it".  You simply said (and I paraphrase), "If it costs more than $0, count me out". From that statement, it's not a stretch to deduce that regardless of the features, you were simply not interested in paying for an IDE. If you intended to suggest that it's not worth paying for unless it's got features that aren't in CFEclipse, I'd agree with that :) -- I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my life. I love my wife. And I wish you my kind of success.

Well you really have to take quotes in context ;-) The English language is so inaccurate at times. I was to be honest talking exclusively about cfeclipse, bolt being based on eclipse too is quite likely to be similar in many ways, hence my attitude of disinterest. I'm notoriously fickle though and one or two killers features will have me sold ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- But... you didn't say, "unless it offers compelling features over and above what CFEclipse offer, I can't see paying for it".  You simply said (and I paraphrase), "If it costs more than $0, count me out". From that statement, it's not a stretch to deduce that regardless of the features, you were simply not interested in paying for an IDE. If you intended to suggest that it's not worth paying for unless it's got features that aren't in CFEclipse, I'd agree with that :)

>>I'm notoriously fickle though and one or two killers features will have me sold I have seen some *Astounding* things done with Eclipse. Aptana, Yoxos, MyEclipse and Flex Builder come to mind right off the bat. Keep in mind that this is Adobe's brain trust we are talking about. With that said, I have a feeling that we may be a bit more than mildly pleased with the results. But then again I could be wrong. I often am. G -- Gerald Guido http://www.myinternetisbroken.com "Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them." -- Rita Rudner

Don't forget Thermo/Flash Catalyst when talking about amazing things done with Eclipse... Adam On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 10:28 PM, Gerald Guido <gerald.guido@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

>My point regarding cfeclipse is that it works really, REALLY well CFeclipse has been buggy (for lack of a better term) for me. It's also a real pain to integrate with source safe.  I really do like CFEclipse when it works. And if Adobe can offer the same or better,  without the bugs and support it, then I'd be willing to pay for it. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> >My point regarding cfeclipse is that it works really, REALLY well > > CFeclipse has been buggy (for lack of a better term) for me. I prefer the term "eccentric" :) It's not without its bugs and quirks.  But for the most part, I've been able to work around them.  I've yet to encounter a "show-stopper" or an annoyance that outweighed the benefits. But yeah, with a team (presumably) working on it full time, I'd expect it to be less eccentric than CFE, which had one guy working on it in his spare time (and we all know how much spare time we have in our lives). -- I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my life. I love my wife. And I wish you my kind of success.

Wouldn't the buginess be a part of Eclipse itself in regards to the source safe integration? ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

While sales might be getting hurt right now due to the cost of the product. The product must be selling well enough for them since they are clearly continuing to invest in it via making new versions.  My only complaint is the need to run Enterprise for Oracle support out of the box when everything else about Professional is fine enough for some project needs. That is only a complaint of mine right now because just ran through the argument on two pre-existing projects and the need to upgrade their versions of CF to CF8 from CF6. On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Robert Harrison <robert@austin-williams.com ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Aar > My only complaint is the need to run Enterprise for Oracle support out of the box Then your complaint is probably with Oracle.  It is my, possible very wrong, understanding that a big factor in the price difference between Standard and Enterprise is the license fee for the Oracle driver.

I prefer to remain ignorant and just complain about the cost difference of the product I am telling people to buy.  After all they do not care if it is Oracle, Santa Clause or Adobe causing it to be significantly more money.  If that is the actual reason then seems a little silly since Oracle is already charging crazy amounts for the database product itself but hey if they can get away with it then more power to them. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

They can get away with it because their (Oracle) thin client driver sucks ;).  The DataDirect version of the driver is far superior.  It could be argued, however, that a company that can put the funds out for an "Enterprise" SQL server, it should be able to front funds for an "Enterprise" web application server.  I'm not saying that's my opinion, merely what seems to be sentiment. Matthew Williams Geodesic GraFX

In our particular case corporate pays or has been paying for the Oracle license/deal that covers the entire company's use and most of that is not for web applications.  Then when someone wants to build a web based application it is up to them to front the bill for the application and whatever means it needs to use to connect to the company defined standard for databases.  So currently the define standard is ColdFusion and Oracle for web apps although it is going to change any day(been hearing this for awhile) because Microsoft is offering SQL Server at next to nothing to them and for whatever reason they(corporate) wants to go away from ColdFusion.  I forgot it was due to DataDirect though which I think is separate from Oracle so the cost makes more sense at least when looking at it that way.  The people paying the bills though do not like seeing the drastic price difference between both versions of CF and in all honesty as far as they are concerned here if just one version was offered and cost what Enterprise costs then it would not be an issue.  It is when they see that Pro price v. Enterprise, then and only then do they want to know why can't that cheaper one be used and then they start looking into alternatives(other languages, never alternative CF servers). On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 4:13 PM, Matthew Williams <mailme@geodesicgrafx.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

It's a DataDirect driver for Oracle, not an Oracle driver. So if there's a huge price difference, it's DataDirect with whom the issue lies. Having said that, the commercial DataDirect driver costs more than all of CF Enterprise, so I think we're getting a good deal. I also like being able to run (for example) 10 VMs on one server for the cost of one license, deploying to J2EE, distributing a compiled war, the server monitor and all the other features we get from Enterprise. As Enterprise software goes, it's a bargain (you should see what we pay for Oracle). mxAjax / CFAjax docs and other useful articles: http://www.bifrost.com.au/blog/ ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

We cannot take advantage of J2EE here because we store all the files on a NETAPP and it is my understanding that JRun needs to  have a drive letter or something to that effect to get to the files when running in that configuration.  Security rules prevent us from making a file share that uses an account which kills that route, supposeably at least pretty sure I saw a way to do it if running Apache but we are running IIS and not choice there for us.   None of us in our group get access to that level of the servers though unless our projects go onto a dedicated server which means the project buys its own CF license as well as the machine itself and so on.  If we could take advantage of J2EE here it would mean a HUGE cost savings considering just how many enterprise licenses are owned but at this point in time even if a solution were presented it would mean nothing because corporate has made the decision to go Microsoft across the board. On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 7:10 PM, James Holmes <james.holmes@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> We cannot take advantage of J2EE here because we store all the files on a > NETAPP and it is my understanding that JRun needs to  have a drive letter > or something to that effect to get to the files when running in that > configuration.  Security rules prevent us from making a file share that > uses an account which kills that route, Bwuh ? How do you get files off the storage system without using a file share ? -- Tom Chiverton Helping to synergistically foster transparent applications **************************************************** This email is sent for and on behalf of Halliwells LLP. Halliwells LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales under registered number OC307980 whose registered office address is at Halliwells LLP, 3 Hardman Square, Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3EB.  A list of members is available for inspection at the registered office. Any reference to a partner in relation to Halliwells LLP means a member of Halliwells LLP.  Regulated by The Solicitors Regulation Authority. CONFIDENTIALITY This email is intended only for the use of the addressee named above and may be confidential or legally privileged.  If you are not the addressee you must not read it and must not use any information contained in nor copy it nor inform any person other than Halliwells LLP or the addressee of its existence or contents.   If you have received this email in error please delete it and notify Halliwells LLP IT Department on 0870 365 2500. For more information about Halliwells LLP visit www.halliwells.com.

To be honest I do not know 100% how it is setup because as I said we are not allowed to get involved to that detail.  It is my understanding it is the difference of using \\netapp\blah v. F:\ the latter being something they cannot setup due to needing an AD account that gives access to all directories on the NETAPP and the former they can do but I am not 100% sure it is down to the file share per project or if it is just \\netapp\ which still gives full access to all directories.  Now the specifics of how they are setting those up and what accounts they have to use for one v. the other is knowledge not known to me.  I was once told the actual reasons behind all of this but was told a year ago, that is when I found the way to do it if using Apache and told them well why not just do this. On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 3:52 AM, Tom Chiverton <tom.chiverton@halliwells.com ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

That doesnt make sense.... When you use \\machinename\folder\filename<file://machinename/folder/filename>you will still need to be authenticated, are they saying that they prefer to use an account that is not in the AD? What is that all about? I would have thought a group in the AD sperate to normal accounts would work, but not knowing enough about AD I could be wrong. On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 11:32 PM, Aar ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

I really do not remember the exact rule and reason, too much time has passed since I tackled that argument with them.  I do remember finding plenty of evidence that actually supported their stance, which typically is not the case.  So whatever the issue is/was would be a valid issue in regards to whatever their security rules are over there.  I know it has something to do with how NETAPPs work and connect to that network but beyond that the details are extremely hazy in my head. At this point it does not matter anyway, corporate has long since decided that CF is not the avenue to continue down after having it as a standard for 8 or so years. On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 6:37 AM, Andrew Scott <andrew.scott@aegeon.com.au>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> At this point it does not matter anyway, corporate has long since decided > that CF is not the avenue to continue down after having it as a standard > for 8 or so years. That's a real shame :-( OOI did you try engaging with Adobe (or a local reseller) to have them come down and give corporate a good talking at ? -- Tom Chiverton Helping to evangelistically pursue synergistic next-generation clicks-and-mortar fine-grained eyeballs **************************************************** This email is sent for and on behalf of Halliwells LLP. Halliwells LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales under registered number OC307980 whose registered office address is at Halliwells LLP, 3 Hardman Square, Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3EB.  A list of members is available for inspection at the registered office. Any reference to a partner in relation to Halliwells LLP means a member of Halliwells LLP.  Regulated by The Solicitors Regulation Authority. CONFIDENTIALITY This email is intended only for the use of the addressee named above and may be confidential or legally privileged.  If you are not the addressee you must not read it and must not use any information contained in nor copy it nor inform any person other than Halliwells LLP or the addressee of its existence or contents.   If you have received this email in error please delete it and notify Halliwells LLP IT Department on 0870 365 2500. For more information about Halliwells LLP visit www.halliwells.com.

This is just speculation on my part but I think someone high up got pissed off when the audit of Adobe and Macromedia products on the network happened. That audit happened when the two companies became one, so been awhile.  Or it could just be that the MS marketing folks do a better job because they certainly sold someone high up on the idea that Sharepoint can do everything. On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 9:20 AM, Tom Chiverton <tom.chiverton@halliwells.com ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> because they certainly sold someone high up on the idea that Sharepoint can > do > everything. Doesn't look as cool as http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/getting_started_with_ice_eu_03.html though :-) -- Tom Chiverton Helping to advantageously grow intuitive viral niches **************************************************** This email is sent for and on behalf of Halliwells LLP. Halliwells LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales under registered number OC307980 whose registered office address is at Halliwells LLP, 3 Hardman Square, Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3EB.  A list of members is available for inspection at the registered office. Any reference to a partner in relation to Halliwells LLP means a member of Halliwells LLP.  Regulated by The Solicitors Regulation Authority. CONFIDENTIALITY This email is intended only for the use of the addressee named above and may be confidential or legally privileged.  If you are not the addressee you must not read it and must not use any information contained in nor copy it nor inform any person other than Halliwells LLP or the addressee of its existence or contents.   If you have received this email in error please delete it and notify Halliwells LLP IT Department on 0870 365 2500. For more information about Halliwells LLP visit www.halliwells.com.

Tom you have surprised me there.... //machinename/folder/filename Can get access to the file, you dont need to map it to a drive letter, and I think that is what he refers too. On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 8:52 PM, Tom Chiverton <tom.chiverton@halliwells.com ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> //machinename/folder/filename > Can get access to the file, you dont need to map it to a drive letter, and Yeah, I know that, and using that sort of path should be fine, if that's what the sys. admins. want him to use. -- Tom Chiverton Helping to seamlessly utilize functionalities **************************************************** This email is sent for and on behalf of Halliwells LLP. Halliwells LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales under registered number OC307980 whose registered office address is at Halliwells LLP, 3 Hardman Square, Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3EB.  A list of members is available for inspection at the registered office. Any reference to a partner in relation to Halliwells LLP means a member of Halliwells LLP.  Regulated by The Solicitors Regulation Authority. CONFIDENTIALITY This email is intended only for the use of the addressee named above and may be confidential or legally privileged.  If you are not the addressee you must not read it and must not use any information contained in nor copy it nor inform any person other than Halliwells LLP or the addressee of its existence or contents.   If you have received this email in error please delete it and notify Halliwells LLP IT Department on 0870 365 2500. For more information about Halliwells LLP visit www.halliwells.com.

You dont need the Enterprise product to run Oracle on it. On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:51 PM, Aar ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- -- Razuna On-Demand - Hosted Digital Asset Management Solution Razuna - Open Source Digital Asset Management with Web Content   Management http://www.razuna.vom/ Razuna - Open Source Forum Solution http://www.kabunto.org/ Roozani - memorize everywhere http://www.roozani.com/ SixSigns - Enrich people?s lives and web experience http://www.sixsigns.com http://blog.sixsigns.com Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/sixsigns

I said "out of the box" and you do indeed need Enterprise if you want to do it out of the box or at least to run stored procedures with any real success.  Been down the route of other avenues to access Oracle and each has some gotchas. On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 4:25 PM, Nitai @ SixSigns <nitai@sixsigns.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Ok, I missed the "out of the box" part. Honestly, we run Stored   Procedures in Oracle with the Oracle driver without problems. Sure   sometimes you need to write a variable with SQL statements (seem   strange) to make it work within a SP, but all in all it always worked.   Just as a side note. On Nov 20, 2008, at 3:33 AM, Aar > I said "out of the box" and you do indeed need Enterprise if you   > want to do > it out of the box or at least to run stored procedures with any real > success.  Been down the route of other avenues to access Oracle and   > each has > some gotchas. -- Razuna On-Demand - Hosted Digital Asset Management Solution Razuna - Open Source Digital Asset Management with Web Content   Management http://www.razuna.vom/ Razuna - Open Source Forum Solution http://www.kabunto.org/ Roozani - memorize everywhere http://www.roozani.com/ SixSigns - Enrich people?s lives and web experience http://www.sixsigns.com http://blog.sixsigns.com Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/sixsigns

I know when I have tried using those drivers in the past with pre-existing stored procedures that returned cursors that they did not function correctly but I do not recall the issue since that was 1-2 years ago. On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 3:59 AM, Nitai @ SixSigns <nitai@sixsigns.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Still sucks today :-( On Nov 20, 2008, at 1:28 PM, Aar ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

The Datadirect Driver for Oracle supports returned ref cursors but not encryption.  The Oracle Thin Client Driver supports encryption but not returned ref cursors.  I seem to recall the older Data Direct drivers did not support ref cursors but that was some time ago