> I didn't comment on it at the time, but I was intrigued by the suggestion > that MM should give CFAS away, and concentrate on productivity products for > developers. While a zero price is not what I think would be necessary for > CFAS to gain many more developers, a lower price would and would make CFAS > more price-competitive with the dark side. > > I suggest MM should look at this seriously to see if they can convince > themselves there is some lower price point at which they'll do as well if > not better than they are now. Note that while a lower CFAS is in my > interest, having more developers competing is not. So my suggestion is not > entirely self-serving... >

I think I was the earliest (1/16/2001) on this list to announce I was firing up a few FreeBSD/PHP/MySQL boxes in response to the original Allaire/Macromedia announcement. My participation on this list has ebbed since that time though I have read the list as frequently as I have the past years (daily). I would like to have my interests and time budgeting decisions re-focused on CFAS. Here are a few thoughts on what might bring me back ...

1. Perhaps a relatively cheap 'subscription' to a fully functional version of CFAS aimed at the small time, single developer who scripts, maintains, hosts and promotes mutliple client's web sites on a single or small cluster of servers. A CFExpress that would be worth keeping loaded longer than a few hours. 2. Such a subscription would be a semi-annual(?) CD purchase of an updated cfengine comprising the full suite of functions and tags available in any version. It would not comprise RAD tools, server farm utilities, Spectra like management suites, jrun devices, studio/ultradev/etc., versioning control or editing software. All those extras should certainly be available according to interest and budget.

Successful software has the characteristic of attaining that lofty goal of being seen as an assumed part of a net capable business's basic facilites. Think of a pyramid - a very wide base of many small guys *USING* CFAS topped by layers of more involved hosters deploying thousands of sites. A pyramid is a most stable constuction and very difficult to tip over.

I can envision some layer of the CF pyramid being companies to whom the small guys could outsource services that are beyond the small developers capacity and would call for a more complete collection of tools beyond the basic, core CFAS. Spectra could be reworked so that a small developer who is at the point of turning down new business because of time and management problems can buy large scale site management services from someone in the cf community.

Why bother with any of this? It seems that there are many, many small time CF developers who find it easy to find non-Fortune500 customers. In aggregate, there just might be as much activity at the base of the community equal to the sum of the higher-rollers combined cash flow. No one knows as there haven't been any surveys directed at estimating this kind of data. One can only go with one's perceptions and anectdotal experiences.

The bottom line is that Macromedia has an opportunity to encompass both ends of the market if they can find a way to keep the entirety of the community active, interested and involved. Making the cfengine as ubiquitously available as possible might be the key to achieving that goal. At least, that's my opinion.

hope some may find these comments stimulating ...

I'm keeping my CF stuff close, but I need to keep ramping up the fbsd/php solution.

Pan