It's been a little over a week since the Adobe MAX 2007 ended and I've been too busy to write a 'final thoughts' entry until now. I'm somewhat grateful for that, as I was able to review what other bloggers have said and can now offer a condensed bit of text that adds to everything that's already out there.
For starters, from a 'business development' point of view, the fact that I haven't had time to write until now can be attributed to the amount of business development to be done at MAX. That alone makes the conference a success and makes attendance worthwhile.
A lot of developers have told me that they weren't happy with ColdFusion's presence at MAX (that it was abysmal compared to other topics). It's true that DevCon has undergone a massive change over the years. MAX is largely all about user experience and the conference was about the new products and the 'to-be-released' products. ColdFusion is the most powerful rapid development platform for server side web application development... but it isn't in the same league as Flex, AIR, and Flash video with regards to it's ability to demo. In other words - CF might be dead sexy to many of us, but at their big showcase conference of the year, Adobe is right to show-off the sexy new Flash/Flex based technologies. Speaking of Flex, one great announcement at MAX which apparently slipped by most attendees was the announcement that the price of Flex Builder Standard will be dropped to $249 starting November 1, 2007. If you're thinking of buying a Flex Builder license - I suggest using the free trial for a few weeks more and then making your purchase. The new Flex Builder pricing is a very smart move by Adobe, who will be successful in their mission more easily if they can strengthen the adoption rate of Flex and Flash as much as possible before Microsoft pushes hard to get into the game. I say that because from what I've seen so far, Silverlight just isn't ready to compete and because right now Microsoft is probably fairly preoccupied with 'fixing Vista' and with keeping Apple at bay. Not that Microsoft doesn't still have people working on it, but it's not much use going after a new market (RIA) when you're losing the one you've already got and it's your bread and butter (the desktop).
In the past, Adobe and Macromedia wowed us with apps they built internally which showed what web apps will be like in the future or even what they could be like today. At MAX this year, there was more emphasis on the products themselves and the apps they showed were real applications built, or in the process of being built, by real clients to meet real needs. This says a lot about the technologies (that they've matured and their time has come) and shows that there are real use cases (and a real growing demand) for these apps. I applaud Adobe for focusing more on these more tangible and more important aspects of what the company is all about.
One of the most important reasons I attend MAX is to take Adobe's temperature... to gauge where they're going strategically as well as to judge their overall internal health (based on the observations and conversations I have with the many, MANY friends I have at the company). I'm happy to say that I left MAX relieved. Finally, for the first time, I saw that the Macromedia acquisition dust has settled and Adobe has been made stronger and better for it. New friends from Adobe seem to 'get it' and old friends from Macromedia seem happier and more excited than ever. In other words, the company has gotten through all the bumps and changes that come with merging, appears to have taken the best from both cultures and melded them into one, and both the company and it's employees appear to be very focussed on a common mission. I am eager to see what the next year will bring.
