Late last week, Adam Lehman announced that ColdFusion Product Management and Product Marketing would be passed on to a new team, and that team would be located with the ColdFusion Engineering team in India.

I believe my opinion on this is particularly informed/relevant and so while I don't generally like to comment on what is happening with Adobe, I feel compelled to comment in this case.

Many others have commented, some positive (Ben Nadel is making a movie of it!,) some neutral (Sean Corfield says "Reality check... these guys change Product Managers all the time" (loosely quoted... and don't I know that! :)), and some negative (John Mason says "we are all boiling to death and don't even know it!" (again, a loose quote :).) It's nice to see opinions out there. We are a community forged on opinions. Here is mine.

ColdFusion Engineering began moving to India about 7 years ago now. You may not be aware, but ColdFusion 7 was developed in large part, out of Bangalore, India. Program/Project Management was moved there about 5 years ago with the beginning of ColdFusion 8 development. Technical Support was moved to India and Canada about 4 years ago and Documentation moved at about the same time. Moving Product Management and Marketing is really the next logical step in a transition that was started many many years ago.

I believe it is unrealistic in today's global economy to think that an international company like Adobe should not and would not leverage the human resource development it has done worldwide to its economic benefit.

There have been comments that with the product team going to India, the new team will be less available and less knowledgable about the ColdFusion customer. ColdFusion is a global product, and I don't think the folks in Europe or Asia will see this as much of a change. They never had someone on the ColdFusion management team right in their city/state to call up. If they wanted to see someone from the ColdFusion product team in Europe, they went to MAX Europe or Scotch on the Rocks. So, now us North Americans are the ones that have to deal with not having ColdFusion Management in our timezone. I think most people won't see a huge change there. Maybe some of the community leaders that have known Adam for a long time, but you too can meet the new product team and become Facebook friends.

Will the new management be as good as Adam Lehman? or Alison Huselid? or how about Dave Gruber? Tim Buntel? or Kristen Schofield? These people had a lot of history and knowledge with the ColdFusion product and community. They were all experts at what they were doing and I know that they were all hard acts to follow. The fact of the matter is that people change jobs/roles all the time, and new people are recruited or promoted in to replace them. Sometimes moving on is at the choice of the person in that role, and sometimes a company decides that based on the company need. But it is unrealistic to think anyone should stay in a role forever and it is uncapitalistic to suggest that saving money is not a valid reason to move a role to a different location.

I believe this latest generation of the ColdFusion product team has put together a very strong plan for ColdFusion X, and the strategic direction that plan will take the product will propel it into a Modern Age of ColdFusion, just as Adam said. And I can only hope the folks replacing Adam and Alison will understand their customer base and deliver on that plan. I believe that Adobe management recognizes the need to keep ColdFusion strong, and if anything, I think ColdFusion will now have greater support within the Adobe political environment.

We can't tell how this change will affect the quality of ColdFusion X, and really as customers of a product the only vote we have that matters is with our wallet. I guess we will see how ColdFusion X does with sales when it comes out. Until then, I personally hope that the Community Leaders and stewards of ColdFusion will do their part by volunteering to provide feedback as this plan continues to evolve into reality. And I wish Adam and Alison the best of luck in their new endeavors!

The King is Dead, Long Live the King!

Best wishes, Jason

I've been to a lot of conferences over the years, and I've always found the best are the smaller ones that are run by people that just want to continue to learn, so they decide to make a conference. Over the last couple of years, Brian Rinaldi has created the premier event for Adobe Flash, Flex, AIR and ColdFusion developers in New England, RIA Unleashed.

This year the event has expanded to 2-days including one devoted to your choice of hands-on training in areas such as Flex, Flash, Air, AIR for Android, and ColdFusion. Some highlights of day one include Scott Janousek covering AIR for Android, Mike Labriola teaching component development in Flex 4 and Bob Silverberg on ColdFusion 9 ORM.

The conference day (day 2) includes 4 tracks and over 20 sessions from the top speakers in the industry focused on Adobe technologies and development. This is the best event to get all the scoop on the announcements and releases from Adobe MAX. Speakers from Adobe include Ryan Stewart, Adam Lehman, James Ward, Greg Wilson and Christophe Coenraets. RIA Unleashed also features some of the most well known and respected members of the Flash, Flex and ColdFusion developer communities including Jesse Warden, Jesse Freeman, Raymond Camden, Charles Schulze, Brian Diette, Jeff Tapper and Chuck Freedman among others.

Registration is currently only $200 for both days including the hands-on training, conference day, Thursday night party and lunch both days. You can also just attend the conference day sessions for only $75. Tickets are limited at both prices, so get them while they're hot. :) Also, the hands-on training has limited seating, so register soon before it fills up. Keep in mind, this event sold out early last year and I hear it is well on its way this year, so register soon!

• Full details at: http://riaunleashed.com
• Register at: http://riaunleashed2010.eventbrite.com/
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/riaunleashed
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/riaunleashed

You can hear Tom Jordahl speek about BlazeDS via Connect session tomorrow Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 6:00 PM Eastern US time.

Description:

"Recently Adobe announced the release of BlazeDS which will make some key server technologies open source and free to use in any application. These technologies are critical to building great applications with Flex and AIR. Tom will talk about exactly what you get in BlazeDS and how it relates to LiveCycle Data Services and will detail some of the reasons why you might want to use these server technologies. He will also explain how ColdFusion developers can take advantage of BlazeDS in their applications. "

More information about the meeting can be found at http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/calendar/7387399/

TomJ knows everything there is to know about this stuff. Take advantage of this opportunity!!!

Jason

ColdFusion survived the turn of a millenium, the destruction of the .com era, the changing of underlying technologies from a wholly owned C-based technology to living on JAVA in a complex and ever changing world, the changing of product managers several times (including the change to me being the product manager), 2 acquisitions, and 8 versions (with the 9th version already announced by Kevin Lynch, the SVP of the Platform BU and Chief Software Architect of Adobe)... but CFDJ has keenly determined... that ColdFusion cannot survive one thing... Tim Buntel... moving to the FlexBuilder team.

To be clear, I have more respect for Tim Buntel than you will ever know. He has done tremendous things for ColdFusion. He carried the CF torch for a very long time, through very tough times. He was involved in the product decisions for CF8, but certainly did not run the show. His responsibilities as Product Marketing Manager left him mostly concentrated on things dealing with... well... Marketing.

Tim's replacement in the Marketing role is Kristen Webb Schofield. Kristen has been working on the ColdFusion team since 2000, back to the Allaire days. She has been to all the conferences, understands the ColdFusion user and community as well as anyone, is hard working, and is as sharp as they come. We are all very fortunate to have Kristen working on ColdFusion.

So... I came on almost 2 years ago in the Product Management role and Kristen has moved up to replace Tim in the Product Marketing role...

Is CFDJ saying that the two of us... can't possibly replace the one Tim Buntel? and therefore Adobe must be killing CF?

Tim is still involved with the CF community (he's heading to Europe over the next few week to promote CF) and he's still at Adobe. In fact, rather than seeing Tim in one Marketing meeting a week and the occassional chat by the water cooler... he is a fellow Product Manager, and we are on the same Product Management team! Which means we meet several times a week, and are able to exchange more product ideas than ever before.

The climate of "everything must be JAVA or .NET" is gone... it is clear that CF has a future, and a team focusing on that future. We are firing on all cylinders. The sales phones are absolutely ringing off the hook (ask Jason Graves our Sales Account Manager some time). CF is in the best position it has been in years...

In fact, we're expanding the CF team, looking for sales members and evangelists.

I don't get it... spite? sensational journalism? lack of understanding of the real situation? This just seems to validate the decision to no longer fund SYS-CON. The decision was made because the content and services were less relevant and compelling, but their lack of professionalism is justification in itself.

I just don't get it... I'd love to here your comments.

Jason