Latest News from Adobe Flex Journal
Adobe Reorgs
Adobe now has a Creative and Interactive Solutions business unit headed by David Wadhwani, who ran its Platform business so the company can take a more integrated approach, and “deliver faster on our vision of multi-screen publishing and drive innovation and support for both Flash and HTML 5 authoring.”
John Loiacono who ran Creative Solutions is now heading up a new Digital Media Solutions unit focused on the company’s core digital imaging franchise.
Former Omniture CEO Josh James is leaving the company at the end of July and will be replaced by former Omniture biz dev VP Brad Rencher. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said Omniture now represents about 10% of Adobe’s revenue. Adobe bought Omniture 11 months ago for $1.8 billion.
To Use or Not to Use Flash/Flex Portals for Websites
Last week I was thinking about design of the main view of a new project for a new client of ours. This application is interesting in that it can deployed as an enterprise RIA as well as a tool to be used by any consumer connected to the Internet.
The mockup of the main view looks clearly like a Web portal with a number of portlets, which can be maximized, moved around, and independently communicate with the server(s). But… This Web site has to be discoverable to bring more and more new customers.
Here comes the quiz. Can you see why the previous two paragraphs have an important logical issue, which represents a misconception sitting in minds of many creators of Web content?
Open Letter to the President of Syria Bashar al-Assad
Mr. and Mrs. President Bashar al-Assad:
At the tender age of 17 months my severely ill daughter Sofia, an American citizen, was abducted by her mother on Monday, July 26, in Istanbul, Turkey, and taken to Syria.
I was informed yesterday by Sofia's mother that she will not be coming back to the United States nor will she allow Sofia to return home.
Sofia has been diagnosed with a severe medical condition that requires immediate treatment in the United States. It was scheduled to start on July 27, 2010, in New Jersey, the day after her abduction and was supposed to last until she reaches the age of 3.
Any delay in the urgently needed treatment will result in a life-long disability for Sofia and make her dependent for the whole of her adult life.
The treatment is not available in Syria.
Mr. President, I grew up in Turkey listening to the evening news during our family dinners where I used to hear your father Hafez al-Assad's name more often than the names of my own family together with Menachem Begin, Golda Meir, Anwar Sadat, and Yasser Arafat.
I plead with you on behalf of my daughter Sofia to learn of her whereabouts and see her safely and speedily returned home. I also respectfully request a visa to Syria to meet her at the United States Embassy in Damascus to bring her home.
Mrs. President, parents around the world have only the Hague Convention to rely on in international child abduction cases. I urge your humanitarian consideration, as the mother of a precious child, to fight for Syria to be a part of the Hague Convention. Thank you in advance.
Adobe Buys Day Software
Swiss-based web content management (WCM) house Day Software Holding AG got bought Wednesday by Adobe for roughly $240 million (255 million Swiss francs).
Adobe is now going to tender for its outstanding stock offering $131.53 a share cash (139 Swiss francs), a 59% premium compared to its performance the last 60 days.
Observers believe Day’s been positioning itself so Adobe would buy it.
Adobe currently embeds Alfresco’s open source enterprise content management repository in its LiveCycle product and in its Acrobat.com service under an OEM arrangement but Day and Alfresco don’t seem to tangle in the marketplace.
Day to Be Acquired by Adobe - Implications?
On Wednesday, Adobe announced it was going to buy Day Software, another WCM manufacturer based in Basel, Switzerland, who uses the same technology foundation as Magnolia. As an initiator of the JCR standard and main contributor to Jackrabbit (the JCR reference implementation), Day is certainly important for the JCR ecosystem.
Let's have a look at the possible implications of the deal for Magnolia.
Adobe bought Omniture not even a year ago for 1.2B$, which was/is the leader in web analytics. With Day's CQ (their CMS), Adobe now has the final part in their portfolio to create, analyze and publish content. (I couldn't find out yet what part "Adobe Publish" plays. Seems to be an SaaS platform, so probably not competing with CQ.)
Day Software Reports Revenue Growth of 47%
Day Software Holding AG, a provider of open, standard-based content infrastructure and content management software, on Wednesday announced record revenue growth and strong operating results for the first half of 2010. In a separate announcement, Day Software also announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Adobe Systems for Adobe to launch a public tender offer to acquire all of the publicly held registered shares of Day Software for CHF139 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately CHF255 million on a fully diluted equity-value basis. More details regarding the transaction are available in the joint press release issued by Adobe and Day Software earlier today, which can be found at http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations.
Day reported total revenues of CHF 25.1M, an increase of 47% from total revenue of CHF 17.0M for the first half of 2009. License revenue accounted for 49% of total revenue at CHF 12.4M, an increase of 71% from total license revenue of CHF 7.2M for the first half of 2009. Strong customer renewals drove CHF 7.1M in support and maintenance revenue, or 28% of total revenue, with services revenue totaling CHF 5.5M for the period. Day also reported net income of CHF 3.7M for a total profit margin of 15%. Total cash at the close of the first half of 2010 was CHF 27.2M, a 49% increase over 1H 2009.
Adobe to Acquire Day Software
Adobe Systems Incorporated and Day Software Holding AG announced the two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for Adobe to launch a public tender offer to acquire all of the publicly held registered shares of Day Software for CHF139 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately CHF255 million on a fully diluted equity-value basis. This approximates US$240 million at the current exchange rate.
Adobe’s acquisition of Day will strengthen the company’s enterprise software solutions with market leading Web Content Management (WCM), Digital Asset Management and Social Collaboration offerings. This acquisition represents a significant market opportunity for Adobe to help organizations transform themselves by enabling them to create, manage, distribute and monetize content while optimizing the web experience for their customers.
Notes of a Lifelong IT Student
Have you ever attended software training? If yes, have you enrolled voluntarily or your employer required you to get re-trained to get extra points for your annual review? If so, was that class useful other than getting these points?
In my blog “Notes of a traveling contract trainer ” I promised to write a sequel from the student’s point of view. You got it.
If you work for a large corporation, the chances are high that you are entitled for taking one or two training classes each year. In some cases you even get to choose which classes to attend. I mean off-sight training. But most likely, you are enrolling a class offered onsite by an invited instructor.
Enterprise Development with Flex
It's been almost four months since our book “Enterprise Development with Flex” been released in print by O’Reilly. Since day one, it remains in Amazon’s bestseller’s list in several IT categories. This gives me a great feeling given the fact that Amazon re-calculates their stats hourly.
I’d like to share with you some interesting facts that from the times when this book was in its proposal stage. If you carefully look at the book cover, you’ll notice a little logo and the text Adobe Developer Library. To earn the right to be included in this library our book proposal had to be approved by Adobe engineers. We made it, and are grateful to excellent software engineers from Adobe Flex team, who put their trust in our ability to write such a complex and advanced book. After the approval process was done, O'Reilly sent us the Flex team members feedback without revealing the names of engineers who wrote them. Most of them were 100% positive. But our special thanks go to one unknown member of Flex team who wrote something like, "I don't agree with many of the things that these authors write about Flex in their blogs and articles, and I'd rather not approve them, but I will because there are not many people in the industry who are capable of writing such a book." We don’t know your name, but we consider this assessment to be the best compliment we've received so far. Looking forward to meeting with the members of Adobe Flex team in October at MAX conference. The authors of this book are going to attend this event in LA in October. Our praise goes to the O'Reilly cover designers who correctly visualized three authors of this book without ever meeting them in person. If you bought this book, Farata's team would really appreciate if you'd spend 10 minutes and publish your review of this book on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be long, but we are looking for getting your honest opinion about our work.
I’d like to share with you some interesting facts that from the times when this book was in its proposal stage. If you carefully look at the book cover, you’ll notice a little logo and the text Adobe Developer Library. To earn the right to be included in this library our book proposal had to be approved by Adobe engineers. We made it, and are grateful to excellent software engineers from Adobe Flex team, who put their trust in our ability to write such a complex and advanced book. After the approval process was done, O'Reilly sent us the Flex team members feedback without revealing the names of engineers who wrote them. Most of them were 100% positive. But our special thanks go to one unknown member of Flex team who wrote something like, "I don't agree with many of the things that these authors write about Flex in their blogs and articles, and I'd rather not approve them, but I will because there are not many people in the industry who are capable of writing such a book." We don’t know your name, but we consider this assessment to be the best compliment we've received so far. Looking forward to meeting with the members of Adobe Flex team in October at MAX conference. The authors of this book are going to attend this event in LA in October. Our praise goes to the O'Reilly cover designers who correctly visualized three authors of this book without ever meeting them in person. If you bought this book, Farata's team would really appreciate if you'd spend 10 minutes and publish your review of this book on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be long, but we are looking for getting your honest opinion about our work.
One Less Thing for Flash to Worry About
Move Networks, a once-promising adaptive bit-rate video streaming house whose pricey plug-in-based technology was used at least briefly by Fox.com and ABC.com, has hit the wall running taking over $90 million in investments from Microsoft and Cisco, Hummer Winblad, Comcast, Benchmark Capital and Steamboat Ventures and Televista with it.
Officially it’s looking for a buyer after failing to raise another $20 million. Staff has been laid off and its CEO, former DirecTV COO Roxanne Austin, is gone, replaced by its biz dev guy.
Notes of a Traveling Contract Trainer
Over the course of my career, I've been running lots and lots of training classes on software development. I still do. Teaching software takes 15 - 20% of what I do for a living - the rest is work on real-world projects. These days I mostly teach Java and Adobe Flex courses, but it's like riding a bicycle - if you know how to do it, you can ride any bike, really. The last two months were unusually training-heavy and I've been on the road most of the time.
Training is the best way for marketing of the services that you or your company has to offer. other professional services. Usually, I run training for the clients of our company, but once in a while training firms need a contract trainer for a week, and I consider these gigs too - spending a week in the classroom with professional developer may bring you some development work in the future. Hence I usually don't reject any training request if I know the subject and it fits my schedule. Below are some rules that I've learned during these travels. If you fill I missed something, please leave a comment to this blog.
1. Check the courseware - if you don't like it - reject the training gig. You might make a quick buck, but damage your reputation. After you're gone, people will be left with poorly written courseware and they wouldn't remember that it's not your fault.
2. Book your flights on well known air carriers - if a flight gets cancelled, they can put you on another flight. If a company runs only one flight to your destination, find another carrier. Cheaper ticket price can turn into late arrival for training.
3. While booking the seat on the plane, check with seatguru.com . They can give you misleading information about electric outlets on board, but can save yourself from selecting an inconvenient seat.
4. While people work on a hands-on assignment ask often, "Anyone needs help?" Some people are too shy to ask and can waste time on struggling with a simple error.
5. Stick to the manual. You can and should share your real world experience, but still, people need to be able to use the manual after the superstar is gone.
6. Ask the lab. technician to do what it takes to have the software installed and ensure that licenses are not expired. Ideally, they should re-image all disks in the classroom and install fresh software. Have plan B if this hasn't happened.
7. Don't change the software used in the course just because the client uses different one. If the courseware was created for Tomcat server, don't run the class on the client's WebSphere server just because "Java runs the same everywhere". Trying to be a nice guy may turn into a failed training and bad reviews. Custom training is possible, but it should cost a lot more and has to be prepared in advanced.
8. Don't curse the courseware you are using. Use the rules we used with passed away people - either say good things about them or nothing at all. If you don't see the analogy, I'l help you out - either nothing don't use the courseware, or be nice to it. Instead of saying "I clearly see a bad practice example on page 231" say something like like "I understand why the authors of the courseware wrote it like this - they wanted to give you a quick and dirty example, but in the real-world I'd suggest to do it differently"
9. Speak loudly. If you have a soft voice, purchase a voice amplifier - they have portable wristband ones.
10. In the beginning of the class ask about people's background and expectations from the course. Typically, you'll have a healthy mix of students who really want to learn the subject and vacationers. The latter just use this class as to get a way from their desks. Both categories have equal rights to be in the classroom and your goal is to make sure that they like your class and want you back in the future. I can't give you a concrete advise on how to do it - you'll have to figure it out on your own.
11. The chances are that on the introductory courses some people will state that they already use this software for a couple of months. Just ignore these statements and teach a class as if everyone is a beginner. Don't be afraid that these couple of people will get bored. They enrolled into a 101-level class and have to find a way to enjoy the show.
12. Respect your students. They are fellow software developers that just happens to need a little help in a particular subject area. Remember, you are not a teacher, you are instructor.
Good luck!
Till the next blog titled "How to attend software training".
Training is the best way for marketing of the services that you or your company has to offer. other professional services. Usually, I run training for the clients of our company, but once in a while training firms need a contract trainer for a week, and I consider these gigs too - spending a week in the classroom with professional developer may bring you some development work in the future. Hence I usually don't reject any training request if I know the subject and it fits my schedule. Below are some rules that I've learned during these travels. If you fill I missed something, please leave a comment to this blog.
1. Check the courseware - if you don't like it - reject the training gig. You might make a quick buck, but damage your reputation. After you're gone, people will be left with poorly written courseware and they wouldn't remember that it's not your fault.
2. Book your flights on well known air carriers - if a flight gets cancelled, they can put you on another flight. If a company runs only one flight to your destination, find another carrier. Cheaper ticket price can turn into late arrival for training.
3. While booking the seat on the plane, check with seatguru.com . They can give you misleading information about electric outlets on board, but can save yourself from selecting an inconvenient seat.
4. While people work on a hands-on assignment ask often, "Anyone needs help?" Some people are too shy to ask and can waste time on struggling with a simple error.
5. Stick to the manual. You can and should share your real world experience, but still, people need to be able to use the manual after the superstar is gone.
6. Ask the lab. technician to do what it takes to have the software installed and ensure that licenses are not expired. Ideally, they should re-image all disks in the classroom and install fresh software. Have plan B if this hasn't happened.
7. Don't change the software used in the course just because the client uses different one. If the courseware was created for Tomcat server, don't run the class on the client's WebSphere server just because "Java runs the same everywhere". Trying to be a nice guy may turn into a failed training and bad reviews. Custom training is possible, but it should cost a lot more and has to be prepared in advanced.
8. Don't curse the courseware you are using. Use the rules we used with passed away people - either say good things about them or nothing at all. If you don't see the analogy, I'l help you out - either nothing don't use the courseware, or be nice to it. Instead of saying "I clearly see a bad practice example on page 231" say something like like "I understand why the authors of the courseware wrote it like this - they wanted to give you a quick and dirty example, but in the real-world I'd suggest to do it differently"
9. Speak loudly. If you have a soft voice, purchase a voice amplifier - they have portable wristband ones.
10. In the beginning of the class ask about people's background and expectations from the course. Typically, you'll have a healthy mix of students who really want to learn the subject and vacationers. The latter just use this class as to get a way from their desks. Both categories have equal rights to be in the classroom and your goal is to make sure that they like your class and want you back in the future. I can't give you a concrete advise on how to do it - you'll have to figure it out on your own.
11. The chances are that on the introductory courses some people will state that they already use this software for a couple of months. Just ignore these statements and teach a class as if everyone is a beginner. Don't be afraid that these couple of people will get bored. They enrolled into a 101-level class and have to find a way to enjoy the show.
12. Respect your students. They are fellow software developers that just happens to need a little help in a particular subject area. Remember, you are not a teacher, you are instructor.
Good luck!
Till the next blog titled "How to attend software training".
Disappointed with Adobe
I was not planning to write this post. It was ignited by the “Disappointed with Flex” article posted by Valery Silaev, our lead Flex/Java developer. I’ve been working with Valery on a couple of projects. He’s good software developer. And when he says that he’s disappointed with Flex 4, you should listen. I really value people who speak up freely and have something to say. Valery is disappointed with Flex 4, but I’d like to take it one step further. I’m disappointed with Adobe. To put it simple, Adobe is sloooooow. I mean really slow, and I’m not sure what’s the reason. I know some people from Flex team. They are smart. They can deliver given the right support from top management and proper investment, which is definitely not there.
Today the Flex Market Is Hot - Will It Last?
I’m finishing the third(!) week of teaching Flex. The first half of June I’ll spend doing some regular consulting work, and then another two weeks of corporate training. The use of Flex technologies is picking up in the corporate world, but hiring managers are clearly facing challenges caused by the lack of qualified software developers on the market. Solution? Re-train your own people.
Functional Testing of Flex RIA with FlexMonkey 4
There are three main types of testing of any application: Unit testing, where you test small pieces of functionality; Functional and user-acceptance testing where developers, QA engineers and the end user can ensure that the application does what it’s expected to do; and Load (or stress) testing, when you ensure that the server can process requests of the specified number of users.
Rich Internet applications have are no different when it comes to testing. While the load testing software is not cheap, there affordable solutions for Flex applications that you need to know about.
Flash Builder 4 nicely integrates FLexUnit4 and I highly encourage you not to ignore the unit testing. Just use it.
$55 Per Hour Software Developers
Last week, a US based Flex/Flash developer who IMO belongs to the top 20% Flash developers twitted that he was contacted by a recruiter offering a contract paying $55 per hour. While $55 per hour may sound a lot in some of the developing countries, the cost of living in the USA makes this rate a joke. And we are not talking about some rookie who learn Flex last week in a classroom. Pretty sad, isn’t it?
Next day, a manager of a large corporation asked me if our company can provide them with a senior Flex/Java consultant working onsite in a greater New York area. The rates were $60-$80 per hour plus this software developer would have to go through another consulting company that was on a preferred vendors list of this large corporation. This middleman would also need to get a cut from this rate. Let’s do some math together assuming that the corporate client is willing to pay $80 p/h for this developer.
The preferred vendor will shave off, say, eight bucks. Our company has bills to pay too, and let’s say we’ll take $12. This means that we can pay $60 per hour to a senior Flex/Java developer living in the USA. I can’t find a plumber in our geographical area who’d be willing to clean my toilet for $60 per hour. Last week I had to bring my car to a repair shop to replace worn out brake pads. They charged me $90 per hour for labor.
I deeply regret that I can’t outsource cleaning toilets and changing pads to one of the less expensive countries.
So what does it mean for Flex/Java development in the USA? These are the choices that the enterprise development managers will face:
1. Hire anyone who knows how to spell Binding, AMF, and Servlet and keep he fingers crossed that these guys won’t bring the project to a full stop.
2. Outsource the software development to another country where Flex senior developers started to lay eggs and breed.
3. Stop fooling around and offer reasonable rates in the USA to bring local talent to the project.
In the past, the Wall Street companies were known for selecting the last option. During the last two years their habits changed and they go number two.
Other industries do a number one. When a development manager smells troubles, s/he hits the Panic button and tries to switch gears to select number three, which may not be available cause the good spellers ate almost all the budget already.
Dear corporate hiring manager! Don’t fool yourself. There’s no free lunch. I know, the rules in your company changed, and the HR rats wrote the instructions that tie your hands down. Still, fight with them to make an exception that would allow you to bring a real talent on board. Your career is at stake here.
Next day, a manager of a large corporation asked me if our company can provide them with a senior Flex/Java consultant working onsite in a greater New York area. The rates were $60-$80 per hour plus this software developer would have to go through another consulting company that was on a preferred vendors list of this large corporation. This middleman would also need to get a cut from this rate. Let’s do some math together assuming that the corporate client is willing to pay $80 p/h for this developer.
The preferred vendor will shave off, say, eight bucks. Our company has bills to pay too, and let’s say we’ll take $12. This means that we can pay $60 per hour to a senior Flex/Java developer living in the USA. I can’t find a plumber in our geographical area who’d be willing to clean my toilet for $60 per hour. Last week I had to bring my car to a repair shop to replace worn out brake pads. They charged me $90 per hour for labor.
I deeply regret that I can’t outsource cleaning toilets and changing pads to one of the less expensive countries.
So what does it mean for Flex/Java development in the USA? These are the choices that the enterprise development managers will face:
1. Hire anyone who knows how to spell Binding, AMF, and Servlet and keep he fingers crossed that these guys won’t bring the project to a full stop.
2. Outsource the software development to another country where Flex senior developers started to lay eggs and breed.
3. Stop fooling around and offer reasonable rates in the USA to bring local talent to the project.
In the past, the Wall Street companies were known for selecting the last option. During the last two years their habits changed and they go number two.
Other industries do a number one. When a development manager smells troubles, s/he hits the Panic button and tries to switch gears to select number three, which may not be available cause the good spellers ate almost all the budget already.
Dear corporate hiring manager! Don’t fool yourself. There’s no free lunch. I know, the rules in your company changed, and the HR rats wrote the instructions that tie your hands down. Still, fight with them to make an exception that would allow you to bring a real talent on board. Your career is at stake here.
$55 Per Hour Software Developers
Last week, a US based Flex/Flash developer who IMO belongs to the top 20% Flash developers twitted that he was contacted by a recruiter offering a contract paying $55 per hour...
Upcoming public Flex training and New Jersey User Groups
1. Last year, the Princeton Java Users Group that I’m leading became homeless. We lost the host that was giving us a place to meet and pizza.
2. Last year, New Jersey Flex Users group ceased to exist – not sure why. The Garden State, where every other person is in IT deserves better.
3. Being a proud Jersey resident, the next week will be the second time I’m presenting this year… at Atlanta Flex User Group Atlanta. No, it’s not Atlantic City, NJ. It’s Georgia.
4. Flex and Java nicely compliment each other in lots and lots of real-world enterprise projects in the greater New York Area, which wouldn’t be able to run its IT operations without us, Jersey hero commuters who spent 3.5-4 hours a day getting through the tunnels and bridges to that famous island and back.
5. Recruiters have hard times finding developers with Flex/Java skills.
6. I’m ready to create and run a new Flex and Java Users Group in Central Jersey as soon as someone will offer a place to meet and pizza to eat. It has to be a meeting room that can feet at least 30 people. This is all I’m asking for. The hosting company will be entitled for opening 5 minutes of each meeting announcing their products, or job openings. And people who attend users groups are real developers! If interested, send me an email at yfain11 at yahoo.com.
7. My role is to bring qualified presenters and present myself on the subjects that interest enterprise Flex and Java Developers.
8. All of the above is a just part of my contribution to Flex and Java community.
9. Now let me take care of the bills. I’ll be running a week of live online introductory Flex 4 training on the week of July 12, 2010. You can attend without the need to travel. For details and registration visit this site.
10. The next one-day advanced public Flex workshop on modularization of Flex applications will take place in Lansdowne Resort, VA on July 27, a day before the CFUnited conference starts in the same venue ( this workshop is not affiliated with CFUnited). Here’s the registration page.
11. In August-September I'll be running a week of online live Intro to Java class - stay tuned.
That’s all folks. See you in one of the meeting rooms.
Don’t Assume Cloud Services Will Save Your Data
When you trust your data to a cloud service provider, do you automatically assume that it will remain safe? And do you assume that, should a service failure occur and the data appears lost, that the provider will have automatically backed it up somewhere – saving the day?
Don’t assume.
Earlier this month, there were three power outages at Amazon Web Services, and people lost their data. One customer was so angered by it that he/she left a post on Amazon’s blog, entitled: “Amazon EBS sucks; I just lost all my data.” The gist of the disappointment was a notification to the user that they’d “experienced a failure due to multiple failures of the underlying hardware components and was unable to be recovered. We recommend recovering from your most recent snapshot.”
Earlier this month, there were three power [...]
The Day When the Flex Framework Cairngorm 2 Died
When a new version of a software is released, the old version lives for a while and its creators usually care about supporting it. Yesterday, after reading about the release of Cairngorm 3, it’s clear that Adobe Consulting ignores this rule. Why did they quietly burried Cairngorm 2?