Macromedia Director's Life Expectancy?

[AGRO]

click here to read (http://www.actionscript.com/archives/00000595.html)

[eric_darling]

It's probably politically incorrect for anyone at IR to respond, but I'm not with IR!

I think the basic feeling on this is pretty clear. No one expects much new out of Director. Macromedia has mothballed significant development with that product to focus on their bigger sellers. To the contrary, since AMS is probably IR's biggest product going, I'd say we all stand to gain more attention from IR than Macromedia, just based on the pure business reasoning behind my statements.

Further, IR as a company has ALWAYS treated their customers with nothing but the utmost respect and deepest commitment to assistance. I cannot say the same for Macromedia.

Just my .02.

[Corey]

Not at all. I didn't respond because it is a ridiculously uncredible article and as such illicits no response. IR pretty much lets me say whatever I want in here, certainly moreso than any other company would... :)

Anyhow look at it this way. Would the product exist if the vendor didn't have a motivation for it to? No, of course not. Is that motivation any of my business? Of course not. So that's pretty much where my thought process stops.

But the truth of Director is that it's an awesome amazing program. The most amazing stuff I have seen on the net has all been shockwave by far. I remember one thing Stan Lee the comic guy did, just amazing stuff... There are thousands of dedicated Director people out there, the community is healthy and alive. What more need be said? Oh yeah the only other point of note, it will take you a looooooooong time to learn Director with any skill.

As to "how that relates to IR", it's not even an issue. AMS is a far superior solution and anyone who spends 3 hours with the trial version realizes that. Director can't compete in our space because our users need to get results fast, they can't be taking 2 years off to master Director, they need to be up and running by next week. No modification to Director could change that, so they aren't even competition for us. I guarantee you there aren't too many people (Bruce excepted) who owned both AMS and Director and use them both regularly, it's pretty much a whole different type of user. Typical AMS user is someone who has dabbled with Director but didn't like the workflow.

I, for one, would love to have a couple years off to master Director, but then again I'd also like a couple years off just to build stuff in AMS also. :) (As well as few more to master the backside lipslide)

If I was a freelancer in today's market, and I owned AMS, I would start advertising, "Custom Business Software Solutions" and get in there with the new SQLite plug-in and start creating some serious apps for SMEs, I wouldn't even be looking at providing the same sorts of solutions as Director offers... (I think in Calgary for example, an agressive go getter with a firm command of AMS and Flash could do six figures) I mean who's in the market for an animated jukebox or shockwave video game nowadays? No one, that's who...

Just for the record, I knew some guys who hit it big with Shockwave creating secure gambling applications for online casinos. (Combo of Shockwave, JSP, and Java) Those guys are all millionaires, pretty hard to tell them shockwave isn't relevant. :)

One last thought. Director is pretty dang powerful, if you can get over the learning curve, you can do amazing things with it, and via the web as well as CD. Director makes flash look like nothing when you really start examining the available Xtras, etc. :) Much in the same way AMS is going to blow you out of your saddle once you start getting ahold of all the exciting new plug-ins. Our plug-ins are far better integrated and easier to use than Xtras, we beat Director in that arena fair and clean.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software (http://www.indigorose.com)

[yosik]

Let me add somethind else to your post, Corey.
The main issue, imho, in an app is not what it can do, but what it can do FOR YOU.
This said, the fact that Director is an app full of features, at a very high level (and I don't mention the learning curve...) is great, but if my usage and needs can be answered more easily with another app, like AMS for example, I wouldn't consider working with Director.
No app is perfect. there is always a feature that one app has and the other hasn't. One has to decide based on one's needs, not the apps features.
Yossi