hear ye, hear ye Old Adobe Be New Adobe
So now that I have rambled on about what ColdFusion developers can do to save the ColdFusion community; I will now turn my sights on to Adobe; the makers of the wonder we call ColdFusion.
I believe there are a few of things that adobe could do straight away to help bring up the profile of ColdFusion:
- Give Free Copies to Educational Establishments (Just like they did with Flex Builder)
- Get a 4 page article in all the main flight magazines
- Stick the Price up by 10 times
- Send Packs of Stickers Out
OK let me explain myself on these points, and then add to this list with things that could be done over time:
Educational Establishments
We already know a few education establishments use CF, but if you openly announce you will give them free copies you will see a rise in the numbers of people using it as part of there course work, as it's so darn easy to create applications. This in turn will increase the number of people developing in CF. Helping the job market and CF sales, as companies will be able to find developers, and thus not want to move away. Don't just think universities, think Colleges and high schools, remember most kids are on social networks, and if you can tap into that by letting them build there own applications and stuff you've got them in the Adobe fold :)
Article in Flight Magazines
We have all heard it, the MD, CEO Chairman or what ever you want to call them has just been on a flight and we get to play buzz word bingo in the first meeting there back. Why because they have been reading the latest in flight magazine; It works as there is nothing conflicting it, all Adobe have to do is show the names of a few large multi national clients, and give a number / email to get an Adobe rep in to there office and get the job done, then you sell air & flex on top with a CF back-end. The sales will flood in!
Stick the Price up
We all know that Websphere is expensive, but why? because being expensive sells;enterprise level products are high cost look at Oracle as well, the mindset about ColdFusion is it's too cheap to be an enterprise level solution, of course keep the current prices for the believers, May be have CF STD, CF ENT. & CF ENT. UNLIMITED for the enterprise guys ;)
Stickers
We all love stickers, send out sticks, place them on our laptops & smaller ones for our phones, people will ask we'll look geeky but they will soon learn the name of ColdFusion
So they were quick, non code changing items, but they will take a long time to filter through, so now for some that may require a new point release? But will help stabilise ColdFusion in the market place.
- Bring Back DevNet
- Open Source (Had to be here)
- Entice Other Technologies
- Get Adobe Evangelists to use CF
Bring Back DevNet
We understand you don't need or want to bring it all back but maybe a server edition, It's hard for companies to justify a full blown CF Licences just for DEV, STAGING and if your really lucky QA & UAT. The only thing was the Meta tag that broke things, but this could be changed to something just after the <BODY> tag, so it only shows on front pages, or only do it on X number of hits? Or even buy two full copies get one Dev/staging copy with say 25 internal IP limited that has to be predefined. Some more thought could be put into this type of idea to make it better.
Open Source
Well it had to be here, now that BD have open sourced their Java version, will it help the community we can just wait and see. But I guess a lot of thought needs to be put into this, but no reason why a sub standard version could be Open Sourced like Blaze? Take out event gateways, enterprise DB's & I don't know some imaging & PDF stuff (but not all) Just some thoughts.
Entice Other Technologies
We know we already have the .Net stuff, but really get out there and show people how easy it is to incorporate other technologies and leverage the RAD of CF with them for time to market, even pay for real world developers to go to other conferences to show it off, break the CF Conferences boundary, and even the Adobe boundaries.
Get Adobe Evangelists to use CF
When you see a Flex, LiveCycle or Air demo you rarely if ever see CF Being used, why? Because internally at least over Europe ColdFusion needs to sold, come on guys it's your own technologies and it's all about sales surely?
So again another ramble which I hope raises some interesting debate, and to stop these technology writers from righting ColdFusion off, and recruiters from having to do some work and fill the jobs rather then making companies switch technology, give it awhile and there will be no XXP developers but plenty of CF Developers but no jobs and the recruiters will be saying XXP is dead :)
I'd be interested to help Adobe investigate some of these options :)
If you want to put your thoughts forward to the guys that matter at Adobe, the Senior Product & Senior Marketing Managers for ColdFusion will be at Scotch on the Rocks.
I think the word is 'investment' in young programmers. Sponsoring Universities to run courses (basic bribery - follow Apple's lead on this one!). I think CF is on the right track with introducing the ajax stuff as a lure for new developers, there just isn't enough 'wow factor' from the marketing team.
Kids at uni are very influenced by their out of touch professors, so if you threw some money and training resources in their direction, I think you'd start to see an opening there.
--- Ben
Maybe it's time for a "Bring Back the Bolt" campaign? I always loved the old logo with the lightening bolt and fist.
I am working on some others, as Ben said. Having support from the community is a good thing.
Stay tuned.
Get Adobe Evangelists to use CF
When you see a Flex, LiveCycle or Air demo you rarely if ever see CF Being used, why? Because internally at least over Europe ColdFusion needs to sold, come on guys it's your own technologies and it's all about sales surely?
I think Ben needs to get a few more evangelists on the team from a CF background, especially here in Europe. As far as I'm aware, the only ones on the evangelist team from a CF background are; Ben, Adam and Ryan - all US based.
Or, Adobe needs to invest a little time in bringing the other evangelists up to speed on CF. C'mon, it won't take that long as we all know how quickly you can become proficient in CF.
I'll start a campaign to get get this going if you want? I'll heckle every evangelist who isn't using CF. I'll start a website. I'll email everyone of them every working hour of the day telling them to use CF. I'll email Ben double. Thoughts? ;)
--- Ben
Thanks for the update sounds like the wheels are in motion on the evangelists front ;)
@Kristen,
Yay stickers!!! We like stickers must say I like the Air ones, small ;) Any chance of the hand & lighting bolt coming back :)
@Andy,
I guess your right best show what you know, but as they get to know it more the better they will become at selling a whole solution.