Application Development and Deployment Tools: Macromedia Tops in Tools
For the third consecutive year, Macromedia took home the gold in this category overall; in 2000, Allaire took the gold before it merged with Macromedia. Building on Studio MX's success, early last month, Macromedia released new scripting tools for creating and deploying Web apps based on Sun Microsystems' Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) software. Versions of ColdFusion MX are available for IBM's WebSphere, Sun One and Macromedia's JRun.
Macromedia is demonstrating it knows how to make its partners happy.
"We usually have to beg and plead for favors from our vendors," says Rick Kollmeyer, president of Blue Edge Data Solutions. "With Macromedia, they actually come to us asking what more they can do, what more can they give us, and what else they can teach us to make us more successful."
Macromedia took first place in three out of four subcategories,product innovation, support (tying with IBM) and partnership,losing the loyalty subcategory by one point to IBM. Winning the loyalty subcategory was a big coup for Big Blue, squeaking out the win with a score of 80. In fact, IBM was the one thorn in Macromedia's side. Macromedia took first place in all but three criteria: presales support, marketing support and e-business portal. In each of those cases, the vendor lost to IBM. Last year, Macromedia also lost in three criteria to IBM: product quality/
functionality, marketing support and channel strategy.
With the exception of the three criteria in which it beat Macromedia, IBM received mostly second-place marks. However, Big Blue earned two third-place scores,evidently solution providers surveyed did not find IBM particularly easy to do business with, and they did not appreciate the richness of features in either WebSphere Studio App Developer 4.0 or VisualAge for Java Enterprise Edition. Microsoft walked off with second place in those two particular criteria, for its Visual Studio .Net and .Net framework products.
Microsoft came in an overall third in the category, up a notch from last year when it placed fourth in a race run by the same four players. This year, Oracle nabbed the bottom slot. Microsoft got middling scores at best from those surveyed: In a majority of criteria, the vendor finished in third place. Its one fourth-place score was in the criteria of product quality/reliability, where it earned a 68. Microsoft announced in August it would be updating the product, making it work with the upcoming Windows .Net Server OS, and the updated SQL Server database, code-named Yukon.
Both Microsoft's and Oracle's scores were generally less than the average in every subcategory except loyalty, in which Microsoft managed to eke out one point ahead. Oracle's scores, however, were by far the lowest in the category. The overall score its 9i JDeveloper received was a 60, in a category with an overall 67 average. Macromedia finished with an overall score of 73, 13 points higher than Oracle's. In fact, what prevented Oracle from an embarrassing finish in the 50th percentile was its loyalty score of 66. While still the lowest loyalty rating out of all the contenders (by 10 points), that number was enough to boost the vendor's overall number. The lowest scores Oracle received were for presales support (52), marketing support (50) and communication (51). The highest was a 72 in product quality/reliability. Still, the product's cost can't be beat: You can download Oracle9i JDeveloper from Oracle's Web site at no charge. (Oracle will charge once a business starts using software developed with the tools.) It's worth noting that solution providers can also download the ColdFusion MX Server Developer edition, a free version of ColdFusion MX Server limited to a single developer on a single workstation. It supports all of the features of ColdFusion MX Server Enterprise Edition, but is limited to access by a single IP address.
With scores like those, Oracle has a tough road ahead if it wants to achieve its goal of overtaking IBM in market share, and Macromedia in channel excellence.