I don't think the list has ever been busier!

The comments on licensing so far have been very interesting, whether or
not they've been doused with vitriol. Personally, I think Macromedia is
in a difficult situation, but they might benefit from looking at how
their company (regardless of the Adobe merger) parallels another large
software company, and how they might be able to benefit from the other
groups learnings.

The company I refer to? Microsoft.

If you'll allow the hoary analogies, the Flash Player is the equivalent
of Windows. It's ubiquitous, cheap (as in free), and the fact that
everyone has it allows for the creation of an business that revolves
around creating products for it.

The Flash development platform (i.e. Studio 8) is the equivalent of
Visual Studio. Both Microsoft and Macromedia make a large amount of
their revenues from the tools that developers use to create content for
their platform.

FCS/FMS is similar to the Windows Media Services package that is part of
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise/Datacenter. A note on this: You don't
need to have a client access license to handle streaming (at least
according to Microsoft's website), so if you want to stream to 10 people
or 1,000 people, it still costs $1400 for the OS (OEM pricing). It's
true that it doesn't have the data aspects that are available in
FCS/FMS, but it doesn't have the client limitations either.

The reason why I haven't made the analogy with someone like Real is that
they don't have that toolkit segment in their product lineup. When
people are comparing MM and FCS to Real and the Helix series of servers,
they are comparing two different business models. It's not beneficial to
the discussion.

So, where do I think that MM is going wrong? I think they've lost track
of the fact that their revenues come from their tools, and that the
other flash-related products such as FMS should be there to support
greater sales of those tools.

Studio 8 costs $999. Flash 8 costs $800. You can sell those products to
an entire department of developers. Server products will never have the
same volume, but you can use them as a catalyst for more tools sales.

Realistically, MM will never be able to know how their software is going
to be used. Their role should be (in my opinion of course) to create a
set of tools that are rock-solid and easy to use, and to provide
associated technologies that enable the Flash platform to do more.

They also need to not price themselves out of innovation.

Thanks,

Paul

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