An Interview with Kevin Lynch and Jeremy Allaire : Macromedia UCON 2001

 
Dec 07, 2005
by S. Malkah Cohen, Managing Editor

I had the rare opportunity to sit down with Kevin Lynch, President of Products for Macromedia, Inc., and Jeremy Allaire, co-founder of Allaire Corp. and now Chief Technology Officer for Macromedia, Inc., during the Macromedia UCON 2001, held from April 10-12, 2001 at the New York Hilton. These dynamic leaders of Internet development took time from the whirlwind of conference activities to discuss the recent acquisition of Allaire by Macromedia and tell us, the ColdFusion user community, a bit about what is in store for us.

Kevin is a slender fellow with a forthright manner and a twinkle in his eye. Jeremy, at an even six feet tall, has a ready smile and an unstoppable enthusiasm for the work he and Kevin are doing to bring the web to ever greater heights of usability and capability. Finding a quiet conference room away from the din and bustle, they seemed happy to meet with me.

I was curious about possible plans to integrate the ColdFusion language into Macromedia products, such as allowing an action script type language to be integrated into ColdFusion. In the conference's keynote address and in the "sneak peek" the day before, I'd seen quite a bit about some new developments which implied that this might be the case.

Kevin fielded this query, stressing that "CFML is awesome." Although some cross-pollenation is anticipated, such as extended support and integration of ColdFusion in Macromedia's UltraDev or perhaps a Generator-ColdFusion package deal, Macromedia intends to continue to market ColdFusion as a separate product. ColdFusion's focus on the delivery of information meshes perfectly with Macromedia's authoring and design tools to present an uniquely unified group of products that puts the entire web development process in the developer's toolbox. On the other hand, Macromedia currently supports other languages, including Perl and ASP, as well, and will continue to do so, providing the broadest range of possibilities for content developers.

Thus, ColdFusion will be given more ways to support authoring languages [see our coverage of the UCON 2001 keynote address and sneak peek, elsewhere in this issue], and will continue to grow and develop independently.

Jeremy added that "we plan on providing better integration between the tools and the servers, by having the tools better support ColdFusion development. Likewise, you'll see our servers better support Flash, using Generator and future technologies."

What About Studio and HomeSite?

There's been a lot of concern in the community and a lot of talk back and forth about ColdFusion Studio. Some developers say Studio is good as is, while others could see it being turned into an extended Ultradev. As Studio has not been thrust into the spotlight in any of Macromedia's publicity, I asked Jeremy and Kevin to calm the community's fears and tell us what's going on.

Jeremy said that HomeSite and its expanded version, ColdFusion Studio, are good solid products. They are great for coding, with a wonderful visual database tool, better than Ultradev?s coder and debugger. Ultradev provides a more abstract form of visual design. The core difference here, Jeremy pointed out, is the difference between coders and visual designers, IDE vs. drag-and-drop design. There?s a definite need for both methodologies to be supported.

There will definitely be a ColdFusion Studio 5, with full support from Macromedia. However, the teams working on this are also working closely with Macromedia?s development teams, and the product will be moving toward eventual integration with other products.

Jeremy also reminded me that Allaire Corp. was built on server technology and sold on that basis. HomeSite and ColdFusion Studio were built by a small team and were not very strongly marketed. Macromedia focuses mainly on tools like these. Now it will be concentrating on tools to support the server, as well. The merged companies can offer the tools that will encourage newer users to come aboard and make optimum use of the web.

ColdFusion Licenses and Subscriptions

A number of developers are asking about their subscription to ColdFusion and what will happen now when ColdFusion 5 comes out. They are concerned about the existing network of Macromedia Alliance partnerships and how upgrades will be handled in the new corporate environment.

Both Jeremy and Kevin assured me that existing subscriptions and licenses will continue "as-is." With regard to the Macromedia Alliances, Macromedia is more focused on this than ever. This is one of the many areas that Macromedia had noted Allaire?s strength, during the years in which it was such a partner itself. In fact, Kevin implied that Macromedia felt this was a strength it lacked in its own operation, which made Allaire all the more attractive as an acquisition.

The Original Allaire Alliance and Team Allaire

Developers may notice that in the new version of Forums, all the participants seem to be on a common level, with no special differentiation for the developers that formed Team Allaire. We wanted to know what is going to happen with official initiatives like Team Allaire and the original Allaire Alliance program.

Jeremy responded that the Team Allaire concept is currently being reassessed with an eye to restructuring. Some legal issues seem to have arisen with regard the impact of Macromedia?s generosity to the Team members, which are being clarified and resolved. Macromedia?s Marty Halpin will be in charge of these efforts. "Evangelists," as the Team will probably be renamed, are an essential resource, both to Macromedia and to the community of developers they serve, so preserving this relationship is a priority. More details about this will be available from Marty soon; Jeremy encourages Team members to contact Marty directly with any questions in the interim.

As for the original Allaire Alliance: Jeremy told me that there are now 2,200 Alliance members. Aggressive outreach is underway to bring that total even higher, with an eventual goal of 5,000 members. Training, certification and education programs will continue to rely on the existing Macromedia structure, and Macromedia products will slowly be added to the mix. The timeframe envisioned here seems to be fairly short, with much of it in place within the next few months. (Fusion Authority will be posting more specific information as it becomes available.)

What Will Become of Our Existing Resources?

Certification is a benchmark for professionalism, and Macromedia will definitely support and encourage ColdFusion certification. Jeremy spoke admiringly of Ben Forta?s new certification guide, just one of the many independently published books and tools that are proliferating not only for ColdFusion but also for Macromedia products, such as Flash, which weighs in with about 19 books in print, at last count.

Before the merger, Allaire had developed a rich mother lode of articles, tags and tweaks on its website; that resource will be further developed and expanded. The KnowledgeBase has a busy parallel on Macromedia?s Tech Notes. The DevCenter News mailing has its counterpart in Macromedia's News Groups and the "Macromedia Edge", which is configurable, a la Yahoo, to focus on just what each developer needs and wants. The extensive Tag Gallery is almost overshadowed by the number of plug-ins and add-ons developers can find for the various products at the Macromedia site. These essential tools for developers will benefit from "cross-pollenation" of concepts and structures. (From what we understand, Macromedia will be treating these resources as independent entities, with some cross-linking.)

I congratulated Kevin and Jeremy on the release of the new Forums, on behalf of our readers. Our publisher, Michael Dinowitz, had noticed that the new Forums look good and seem to have a faster response time.

Looking Into Macromedia's Future

UCON 2001 had already given me some hints about ongoing and upcoming initiatives that I felt our readers might find of interest. In particular, mention of a "Macromedia Flash Advertising Alliance" and a mysterious project named "Vermillion" had piqued my curiosity.

Macromedia CEO Rob Burgess had been quite blunt in his introductory remarks at the keynote address the previous day, stating that "Most Internet advertising sucks." Static banner ads of fixed size seem de rigeur and passé, and case studies prove their effectiveness is not what developers might expect it to be. Therefore, Macromedia has established a "Macromedia Flash Advertising Alliance," composed of professionals and business representatives from many fields. Sites such as CNet News are already putting these recommendations into effect. (More information about this initiative can be found at: Macromedia's Press Room.

Every developer in every language on every platform has faced project management issues. It's very frustrating to wait and wait for content from the client, then face the client's protests and complaints about why the project is late. Even centralized project control sites on the web, listing what's due when from whom, may not be able to motivate the key people, especially if these are not updated regularly. "Vermillion" may be able to help. Currently under development at Macromedia, this mystery project is aimed to give developers a tool to "manage resources and techniques." This team project management system will not be product-specific and could potentially be the boon project managers the world over have longed for. I'm sure all our readers will be watching for this code name!

Looking into the future, Kevin and Jeremy brought up another topic: How ColdFusion can use Flash to increase its capabilities. This exciting new possibility adds a whole new dimension to ColdFusion development. Flash is envisioned to play a key role. Macromedia's goal is to help ColdFusion use Flash to overcome cross-media limitations. Flash will make it possible to develop applications that will translate easily and seamlessly among the many different output devices available: the Internet, Web-TV, PDA's, other cellular devices and whatever else technology innovators come up with next. Product development teams are working even now to increase Flash's user interface connectivity capabilities and make them available to the server side. As demonstrations at yesterday's keynote address and the "sneak peek" showed, Flash-invoking CF tags will make it simpler to add functionality to a site.

Jeremy, Kevin and I also discussed the many other resources out there on the Web for developers, such as the House of Fusion mailing lists, CFAdvisor and (of course) Fusion Authority. Both Jeremy and Kevin have made use of the talk lists and spoke highly of CF-Talk especially, citing it as a "top resource" for ColdFusion developers. Jeremy admits to dropping in on it fairly regularly, adding his "two-cents" to ongoing discussions and learning what ColdFusion developers are doing out there in the "real" world. Macromedia encourages its tech people to participate in forums (as Allaire did), both those on its own sites and those that have been established by the developers themselves. Kevin assured me that Macromedia intends to make itself even more available to the online and print periodicals that support its developers.

Kevin and Jeremy also pointed out that Macromedia and Allaire differ significantly from their competition in that they are "focused ONLY on the web. We have no other business. Developers are our lifeblood." The fact that developers have created their own networks of support and information channels attests to the vitality of the community. Supporting these independent efforts only benefits Macromedia and its internal teams. Macromedia considers such entities as Fusion Authority and Sys-Con to be "business partners."

Fusion Authority and I would like to thank Kevin and Jeremy for taking the time to address some of the issues facing ColdFusion developers

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