JamieG Analysis

I’ll get straight to it.

The Secret sauce is… Drum roll… “Open Source”.

Let me explain.

Firstly, let me go back many years ago, when I was playing with Flash and Flash Remoting back in the early days when the Flash Remoting Server was $10,000 or there about per server. The price killed the product. At that stage I was playing with amfphp, an open source implementation of flash remoting based on PHP. Was amazing. Macromedia had done a lot of amazing work and really looked into the future of where the web was going.

Then something called AJAX appeared. AJAX had me confused for a long time as it was this NEW REVOLUTIONARY way to do asynchronous communication to a web page. Took me 6 month to realise, due to the lack of anyone being able to actually describe it, that I had been doing it 6 months before AJAX was coined.. But I was doing it with Flash Remoting.

Combine the steep price, schools pumping out HTML javascript coders, and that flash/flash remoting was a difficult learning curve, there implementation of AJAX was over looked. As in many ways it makes AJAX look privative comparatively, I feel Macromedia was deeply hurt and shell shocked. (How could the web developer community be so.. lazy /stupid)

For me it all came down to poor marketing and greed. Developers saw the $10,000 price tag and there open minds closed air tite.

Since then, Adobe has come on the scene. We have a new captain.

Flex/Flash/Actionscript has come a long way. Adobe are much more savvy in the ways of the force, Oh I mean the internet. And recently they have had the biggest endorsement of all. Microsoft has copied them.

Let me quickly dive into Microsoft and Silverlight. Silverlight is a stunning technology. In many ways far superior then Adobes/Macromedias implementation. The reason for this is complex but lets say, the main gist is that Silverlight is closer to the metal. Its faster, can take more advantage of the special qualities of the hardware, and in the long run, supplies a WEB experience that is the closest ever to what a local ON Hard drive application feels like. Adobe is clawing some back, but I cannot seem them catching up completely.

Considering all this, I would still lean towards Adobe technology first. And I feel most of the market will. For the following reasons.

1. You simply cannot trust Microsoft. Here is a recent example of this. Here a developer, who released some software to improve the development environment, (Which also worked on the Free version of the development tool) was given an award one day and sued the next. Considering this is a common occurrence with Microsoft. I do not think many companies looking to develop tools using Silverlight can trust Microsoft. They could turn around the next day and screw them. Great software, but no thanks.
2. Bill Gates has stated.. “The biggest threat to Microsoft is OPEN SOURCE”. Funny, most of Flex is now open source.

Adobe really have the pule here. Lets have a quick look at open source attributes.

1. Open source has earned the reputation of being the most secure.
2. The best written code on the world (In general).
3. And the most innovative.
4. Has the support of the wider applications development community.

Sounds very threatening to Microsoft to me. And I am not surprised that Adobe has decided to jump on this bandwagon.

This is still early days, and it is a thin line to walk in a quasi open-source/commercial software project. Still, many very successfully web 2 companies are doing just that. For example

1. Asterisk VoIP
2. zenOSS network monitoring
   
3. Zimbra enterprise messaging (Exchange equivalent)
   

Personally I think opensource/commercial combinations are the future. Fully open source projects usually do not have the leadership to strip of that which holds it back. Only when commercial leadership who understand the need for making sacrifices in terms of implementation and usability, does the mass market appeal grow.

Adobe, appear to be right on top of this. I am VERY impressed. Flex/Flash/Actionscript3 will have a big future. If your a developer, get on it.

————-Updated later that day————-

Following is an interesting responce from Jeffry Houser of www.theflexshow.com a fantastic Podcast on Flex/Actionscript3. I highly regard his comments and they are very relevant. As such, I think they are important to this post and so have added them here.

–

Hi James,
I think I disagree with many of your points. Here are a few thoughts:

a) I do not remember Flash Remoting ever being priced at 10K, although I never had to price it for a client. It is for sale on the Adobe Web Site for 1K right now, which seems to be in line with my memory. But, It is included w/ many other Adobe products (such as ColdFusion) at no cost, so I could be wrong. Perhaps AU pricing is different than US pricing? Even so, that’s a big price differential.

b) Flex open sourcing is not a threat to Microsoft. The Bill Gates quote is referring to open source operating systems.
c) Open Source is “the best written code in the world”. By whose standards? What exactly are you comparing OSS code to? I’ve dealt with many OSS whose code was a nightmare.

d) OSS has “the most innovative”. I believe that commercialism / capitalism drives innovation, as such this statement conflicts with my own beliefs.

e) Open Source “Has the support of the wider applications development community.” I believe it depends on the project. And the number of abandoned OSS projects are significantly greater than the number of successful ones that you can get support for.

You’re more than welcome to disagree.

————

And My responce..

a) The initial release of the “Macromedia” server software that supported flash remoting, was, from memory $7000 usd per server, in Aust dollars at the time. That was $10,000. I remember this distinctly as I went to the road show.. Specifically asked these questions, and was falling off my chair with a number of other developers in the audience.. Who simply decided to walk away from the technology. Only banks or other hi end companies would look at this. And as little developers. This was not a conceivable market for us.. Not when the server software cost more then most of the full budgets for projects we where doing.

b) I would have to disagree with you and back this up with a post from techcrunch (Note Here, looked this up and I was confusing this with another article http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/04/salesforce-is-acquisition-bait/ which is not connected to zimbra, but does describe how loosing the war on the corporate desktop is a big deal) that details how products like Zimbra are hurting Microsoft. Microsoft’s hold on the business desktop is, the enterprise level tools. If open source started to archive these levels of enterprise tools. Business would leave in droves, and so would profits. (Which the businesses keep)

c) Yes OSS code can be dribble, but most large OOS projects that have a correct over view and QA system in place, make great code. I have worked in many cooperate software developers. Usually its more of a . Just code it and get it out the door. No care, no quality, apart from it working. No one looking over there shoulder to make sure the code has been written well or documented (Well in many cases). I back this up with Windows Software. Talk about bloated buggy software. (Vista)

d) Yes innovative. Well probably reasonably innovative would be a better description. I’m sorry, I have seen most big company innovations done before by some code in some ignored software either OSS or cheap commercial. Its just the business savvy people pick it up an make it widely known and profitable. That is always been the way. And secondly, OSS usually have a open mind, without the threat (or knowledge) of Patents to lock up there fingers. So, I see OSS moving forward faster in many ways then not.

e) Abandoned projects. Yes that is true, but at least you can pick them up yourself and run with them.

James