Flex and .NET – What’s the Problem?

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Neil posted a question on his blog about the roadmap for Flex and .NET. The official answer of course, is that you can invoke .NET web services using Flex and as a result, Flex “works” with .NET. But Flash remoting and Flex Data Services functionality is missing, though WebORB provides those features.

So what is the roadmap for Flex and .NET? I think Adobe’s in an awkward position. WebORB has done a fantastic job of building a Flex/.NET solution. Adobe has focused on the Java market. Right now marketing and engineering efforts are both targeting Java. There has been some success, but I don’t think FDS is taking off the way Adobe hoped it would. That makes it difficult for them to think about expanding .NET support because they’ve invested a lot of time in Java and that needs to pay off before they can chase other markets.

I think it boils down to the fact that right now, the .NET support they have is enough. .NET shops aren’t clamoring for Flex Data Services, though WebORB seems to do pretty well. At this point, FDS is a tough sell. I think it’s a revolutionary product, but it may be a bit ahead of its time and selling the benefits of FDS to companies takes time. Once Adobe establishes demand for Flex Data Services, they’ll be in a position to support more platforms. Ultimately I think that’s going to be in the form of buying WebORB. But right now Adobe needs to worry about getting FDS more mindshare in the enterprise. As that expands, so will Adobe’s support for other platforms.

[tags]Flex, .NET, WebORB, Adobe[/tags]

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  • http://www.adrocknaphobia Adrock

    Lets call it like it is. As far as market penetration goes for FDS, Adobe should write a white paper on how to price a product out of market. I definitely don’t mean to down play some of the innovative features of FDS, but I think it would fly off the shelves if they cut the cost in half.

    The cost of FDS (especially when clustering/multi-CPU comes in) is way outside the developer market (IDEs, ColdFusion, etc). Which means FDS needs to be sold to Executives as an enterprise product (WebSphere, Oracle, LiveCycle, etc). However, only a developer can fully understand the benefits FDS. While developers may get very excited with the feature set of FDS, its a tough acorn for executive to swallow.

    With the current release, most people just want Flash Remoting for Java, and the current cost is way too much for just that one feature.

    I think projects like WebORM are great. They are helping Flex penetrate the .NET community. However I wouldn’t expect Adobe to leave well enough alone. I’d be very surprised if .NET remoting wasn’t already an internal goal.

  • http://polygeek.com oz

    Yeah, what Adrock said. I see the demos and I’m amazed. Then I wonder, “Okay, where do I go to use this?” It’s hard enough finding hosts that support Remoting. FDS? Is there a single host out there that offers it? And if they did at what cost. Sure, I can play locally with it on my PC but I’d like to be able to share what I build. So until they lower the cost and hosts out there start using it it’s going to remain off my radar. That is unless I had an employer who wanted to pay for it. But at this point I’m pretty sure Microsoft won’t be going down that road.

  • David

    Just for the record, the entry price to FDS is….free! $0 – it’s hard to get lower than that, although I do agree that Adobe should bend over backwards and overcome that hurdle.

    There are limitations to the free version – 60 concurrent users, I believe, and 1 server CPU. Beyond that, you have to pay.

    You know what, I have to say, that seems alright to me. Maybe that’s just because my roots are in corporate development, and I’m used to paying for software.

    David

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    Well said Adrock. I’m sorry I’m in the middle of packing so I won’t comment too much more. I really can’t wait to see when they announce something official or how this all plays out. .NET and Flex are a good fit for a number of reasons.

  • http://blog.xsive.co.nz campbell

    I see all this effort promoting Flex and educating them, and then some people, when you talk about it have absolutley no idea it existed. I think it was marketed wrong and they have treated them as two separate products, when they are really two complementary products.

    Really a lite server should have come bundled with builder and be used in the documentation. Visual Studio comes with MSSql dev edition.

    I use WebOrb alot and love it, and I am begining to think it is overtaking FDS as a product. I havent seen code generation in FDS yet.

    *my 2 cents anyway

  • barry.b

    curious:

    doesn’t Adobe still offer Flash remoting for Java and .NET?

    http://www.adobe.com/products/flashremoting/

    (… yeah, this is AMF0 for AS2)

    of course, ColdFusion users have had remoting built in for years and it’s quite common practice to wrap java objects in CF and then expose that for remoting…

  • barry.b

    sorry. my comment was in response to

    “most people just want Flash Remoting for Java, and the current cost is way too much for just that one feature.”

    and yes, I realise FDS does a hell of a lot more – if you need it (and can afford it).

  • http://notboss.livejournal.com notboss

    “Lets call it like it is. As far as market penetration goes for FDS, Adobe should write a white paper on how to price a product out of market.”

    Sadly, that is correct. Adobe wants (or has to) to pay for FDS development as they go – I think they still have a lot of work to do on the product. They have always believed that owning the AMF/RTMP protocol means they could leverage server prices. They’ve been proven wrong over and over again. They should give up and price FDS less than they price Coldfusion. It’s the only route to having a significant product on the server side.

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