Sys-Con drops ColdFusion for Silverlight
Sys-Con is a printing company. They are not interested in community support. They are not interested in language advancement. They are interested in money. They are interested in enough money to print a magazine, give it away to thousands and still make a profit. Looking over the number and cost of ads in their magazine, they must want a BIG profit. And those advertising dollars are partially guaranteed by Adobe's support.
According to Sys-Con:
After ColdFusion became part of the Adobe product line Adobe recently decided to discontinue its support of the magazine.Now from what I saw in the last issue of CFDJ from months back, there were still Adobe ads. What exactly was the support that was being cut back? One less ad? Half of the ads? All of them? Or did Adobe give them direct cash above and beyond the ads for operations? We won't know till someone from Adobe responds.
But unless Adobe was funding the ENTIRE magazine, any cut in their support should not cause it to fold. The Fusion Authority Quarterly Update isn't folding and not only don't we get direct money from Adobe, we don't even have any Adobe ads in this (and probably the next) issue.
Of course, we care about the community quite a bit more than we do money. That's why we're not a media giant like Sys-Con. But we still have our souls. In the end, I think that's what matters most.
Note one other thing missing from this press release. They are not taking any responsability for their own actions. The total lack of editorial quality, the 'borrowing' of content from other people's websites, their own website being so ad filled that nothing can be found and those freeking annoying auto-play video and popup ads. In the end many of the big names in the community had left them and moved on to other journals or websites. This is just as telling as the removal of Adobe's support.
The biggest problem here is that it looks bad for ColdFusion. The first print magazine dedicated to it has left the building. Now rather than a ColdFusion magazine and a ColdFusion journal, there's only a journal. The very fact that they're moving the magazine from ColdFusion, an Adobe product to Silverlight, a Microsoft product, can and will be used against ColdFusion.
For those who want to get some quality printed ColdFusion and want to ignore Sys-Con, the following journal and books are available:
- Fusion Authority Quarterly Update (Issue 4 at printers, all others available now)
- ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 1: Getting Started (September 12, 2007)
- ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 2: Application Development (October 4, 2007)
- ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 3: Advanced Application Development (October 29, 2007)
To be totally self serving, if you want to buy an ad in the only print ColdFusion journal around, we would be happy to sell you one. :)
Sys-Con Press Release:
http://ajax.sys-con.com/read/426141.htm
Secondly, I would not be surprised if Adobe HAD removed support for CFDJ. Even though Tim Buntel assured me that he is doing a lot to market CF 8, I have seen very little evidence of this. I don't think he's lying, I just think the marketing is NOT working. If it were, we wouldn't continually see "CF is dead" articles from major trade publications. It's one thing to throw a few thousand dollars into a modest marketing campaign that mostly preaches to the choir, and it's another to do a full on blitz like what we saw with the CS3 release. CF gets very little marketing love from Adobe. But we saw the same thing with the previous ColdFusion owners, so there's nothing new here. Like before, the marketing is left largely up to people like you, Michael, and the rest of the CF community. Sigh...
i decided i wouldn't write anything else for them after i wrote a couple of articles several years ago & wasn't treated particularly well. my dealings w/them left a bad taste & i can't imagine i was the only one.
It is evident that Sys-Con has hard feelings, as shown by their lack of appreciation of the support of CF folks over the years. Rather than thanking contributors and readers they insist on trying to belittle CF by making comments which have no statistics to back up their statements.
Good riddance Sys-Con. We have someone already to replace you who cares about the community.
The ads on the CFDJ site made the content intolerable in my opinion. I usually have a very high threshold of mentally blocking ads.
The ads on the CFDJ site made the content intolerable in my opinion. I usually have a very high threshold of mentally blocking ads.
The ads on the CFDJ site made the content intolerable in my opinion. I usually have a very high threshold of mentally blocking ads.
Contrary to some I don't really care that much. I stopped going to the web site. Newsworthy? yea I guess. A non event in the long term? yes indeed.
I find it just the opposite. The fact that this POS magazine drop CF was a plus! I feel sorry for the Silverlight people out there.
Read this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6218210.stm :)
couple of years. I mean, that's all well and good.
But it didn't serve me any purpose in honing or increasing my CF skills.
I used to read the journal a while back, mainly for Ben Forta's articles.
Another thing I find quite disturbing is that you can't find any ColdFusion books at any bookstore
anymore. I used to be able to walk into some of the larger Barnes and Nobles and Borders bookstores
and always find at least one. Now, there are none. O'Reilly will no longer publish any CF books.
CF seems to be becoming more and more niche.
Not very inviting to new users.
I mean the way I even heard about CF was some professor had a free educational version of CF 2.0
back when I was in college.
You could get CF for dummies books with CF Express in it.
Now there seems to be no incentive for students to get into CF.
Ali