Apollo supporters speak up, I point out that…..
So it should not be surprising that the paid Apollo supporters reacted to my post on their lock-in platform. I bet there’s a budget line item somwhere that’’s committed to squashing silly truth bearers like myself.
But I do want to respond specifically to John Dowdell - the head Macromedia blogger. He asks “what am I afraid that might happen?” Banner ads, email list selling, malware, backend data mining - all sorts of techniques and intentions are probably built into the Apollo platform already - that they’re not disclosing. I also assume that unless it takes off like crazy, that it’ll be abandoned, like the other Macromedia atempts at creating an ecosystem. And what will also probably happen is that what you see today will get morphed into ’something else’ (I shudder to speculate - but it won’t be fair or even handed.) Time will tell.
David Geller asks “what else should Apollo be?”
To answer David I only have to look at his own admissions. He says he’s used Laszlo and that only Laszlo can compare to Flex. “Gee dude - ever wonder where Macromedia came up with the idea for Flex?”
Starting with Laszlo would be a great place to start, and supporting http, HTML, etc. is also obviously key to success for any platform that wants to work with the web. But Laszlo and http/HTML are just the beginning.
I won’t spill ALL the beans here - but if I had 1/10th of the R&D budget that Adobe/Macromedia has - I’d be working on OPEN protocols, data structures and notions that would enable a meshed together community of apps and services.
I’d be compatible with Yahoo, Google, AOL and Microsoftt. I’d be offering ways for existing web services to tie in - day one. I’d provide support for utilizing open XML/JSON servers - like Freebase, VOIP enabled products - that supported SIP, IM products that were based upon the Jabber protocol, XMPP and of course stacks of ID stuff - standing on the shoudlers of OpenID and he attribute exchange. OpenLaszlo, openData, open source infrastructure, openFinancing and openAttitude.
And that’s just the beginning. But that’s all you get for now - as I gotta go off and ship what we’re working on today - to get us there.
To anonymous - I first gotta ask “why are you anonymous?” Afraid of something? You point out Macromedia’s stellar growth, market cap and developer community. To you I say “who invented multimedia players, multimedia authoring systems and cross-platform authoring? Bud Colligan, Kevin Lynch, Rob Burgess?” Growing a company ain’t the same as inventing products and a new market.
The point I’m trying to make here has to do with innovation, long term issues and original thinking. Macromedia took a great set of ideas and squandered them. $3.4B valuation? Why didn’t they get a $34B valuation or more? Why take the money and run? How come (at the height of the bubble) did Macromedia have a 50% turnover rate? Go ask a former comployee (the one you probably fired) what it was like - to work for you.
Victor Agreda points out the sad reality that lock-in doesn’t matter and that end-user compelling experiences are ALL that matter. And to this I say “RIGHT ON!” But life is about emotions and I don’t do Apple or Adobe/Macromedia. Those are my emotions. If you wanna go through what I went through, then you’ll come out the other side agreeing with me. Or if you wanna save yourself heartache, trouble and years and years of consternation (and stay in business as a software gal or guy) then you’ll stay away from BOTH Apple and Macromedia/Adobe.
That’s what blogging is about. I get to say what I believe and you can read it - or not. Needless to say its GREAT to hear that SOME young startups are architecting their futures - the right way - like Nathan Freiats!
UPDATE: I was just contacted by James Governor - pointing me to his excellent analysis on open ecosystems, etc. Right on James!
March 20th, 2007 at 5:14 am
[…] « Apollo supporters speak up, I point out that….. […]
March 20th, 2007 at 6:59 am
After reading the dozen paragraphs it sounds like, instead of telling me what you were actually most concerned about, you ran off a laundry list of things that you imagine might happen that you might not like, safe in the knowledge that no one could budge you by proving that the entire set of hypotheticals could never happen.
The impression that I’m left with is that you’re attempting to defend a prior prejudice, rather than working with others to move things forward.
If you ever do see a specific, non-sloganistic improvement my partners could make to improve things for everyone, instead of just rerunning a bitter personal mythology, then I’ll still be listening. Right now, though, there are other people to listen to as well.
jd/adobe
March 20th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
>>David Geller asks “what else should Apollo be?”
I didn’t ask that. I asked what else beside Apollo should we use to perform the same task. We all know about Laszlo. Good stuff. Not as good as Flex or Apollo, though, in my opinion. I’m basing that on the qualiy of the tools, the quality of documentation and the deployment options. And before jumping on that statement - spend time working with all the tools. Show me one of your apps. As for XULRunner… we’ll all see. I’m certainly hopeful it turns out to be great. As a product developer, I’m excited to work with any great toolset and technology. Quite frankly, I’m more concerned with solving problems. If that means using commercial or non-open-source tools, that’s fine.
March 20th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
[…] Hey John Dowdell - need evidence? You were there then - right? […]
March 21st, 2007 at 10:39 am
Speaking of insanely high turnover, a lot of the key players on the Captivate team jumped ship during the Adobe acquisition and came on over to work with us at Articulate. I haven’t really heard anything good about Macromedia from them, just confirmations of what I already knew: I
March 21st, 2007 at 10:39 am
Speaking of insanely high turnover, a lot of the key players on the Captivate team jumped ship during the Adobe acquisition and came on over to work with us at Articulate. I haven’t really heard anything good about Macromedia from them, just confirmations of what I already knew: I’m sure glad I didn’t apply for a job there.