I just finished my last session in Amsterdam, thus wrapping almost three weeks of International ColdFusion MX 7 launch activities (in Japan, England, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands). The past 17 days have been a blur of flights hotels and taxis, interviews and briefings with more than 50 members of press, user group and seminar presentations to over 500 attendees, dozens of partner and customer meetings, and much more.
Tim Buntel, Dave Gruber, myself, and others on the ColdFusion team have been out selling the ColdFusion MX 7 story non-stop for a while now, and the global response has been overwhelming. The bottom line is that ColdFusion MX 7 is a hit, and I want to publicly thank the engineering team, the QA folks, the documentation writers, the thousands of beta testers, and everyone else who helped us create (in the words of one Japanese member of press) “the ultimate ColdFusion”!
Europe Is A Wrap, And A Public Thank You
3 responses to “Europe Is A Wrap, And A Public Thank You”
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Somebody made a comment on the Macromedia forums that this product doesn’t look like it is on top of the Macromedia priorities list.
And I somehow agree, since it wasn’t advertised on the home page as often as Breeze or other products – actually, I’ve never seen it. And it disappeared for good from the home page after a week or so. Looks like Breeze and the Web Publishing System are always in the spotlight, where CF is somewhere hidden on the site. I have to admit, is not that bad as Fontographer, but it still doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
Having said that, I know you, Tim Buntel and the rest of the CF team are trying harder than ever to promote it. And I know you said it hundreds of times that Macromedia is committed to CF, but it just looks like there are conflicting messages coming from them. -
The Macromedia web page is just one marketing medium. On that note, I don’t see them sending around a Breeze Senior Technical Evangelist to many different countries all over the world presenting to its user base.
ColdFusion could be considered a flagship product which usually doesn’t necessarily need selling – it needs the right kind of selling. Instead of going into all the business/marketing angles and why they do what they do … the active forums, active senior employees blogging and upgrades every so often ETC. should speak for themselves.
Breeze is just a product to lure users into the Macromedia world, which incidentally is a world I am enjoying.
Just my 2 cents. -
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Macromedia world too, and I do think CFMX 7 is a great step forward, but in the same time, I still believe that they’re not promoting it enough and send conflicting messages.
During the Blackstone beta, Macromedia positioned this release as a great improvement over the last versions (which it is) and a great and easy way to get into dynamic websites for new users. And now the same new users don’t get any promotional messages from Macromedia.com, unless they’re willing to dig into the site. By definition, a new user is somebody that doesn’t know anything, or knows very little about the product.
I do agree that CF is a flagship product, but I fail to see why it shouldn’t be advertised more to the new users.
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