ColdFusion MX adoption speeds up in SA

SA Tourism and Ernst & Young are two of the growing number of local organisations that have embraced Macromedia`s latest MX platform. ColdFusion MX is helping them deliver a significant competitive-edge.

Grant Brewer, Partner in charge of e-business at Ernst & Young in SA, says: "The Macromedia MX products are well integrated and provide a single common user interface. MX Studio, for example, provides all the tools necessary for a developer to work with from graphical front-ends through to data driven Web applications."

Ernst & Young has used ColdFusion loyally for over two years now and the release of ColdFusion MX now allows it to create internal applications and external client facing applications such as EY/Exchange, a document exchange delivered as an ASP to its clients that enables better information and knowledge management. The company`s application users include Investec, Old Mutual and provincial government.

"The common interface and integration of MX products has enabled our developers to learn faster which, in turn, enables more rapid application development," says Brewer.

Illustrating these views, ColdFusion, along with a recent upgrade to ColdFusion MX, has proven itself invaluable to SA Tourism. Al Karaki, manager, e-business at SA Tourism, describes the product in general and the MX upgrade in particular as keeping the organisation at the front of the Web race.

"With ColdFusion`s scalability, we are comfortable in the fact that as our site becomes more popular and grows, we will be able to handle it," he says. "Furthermore, with the MX upgrade, development time has accelerated, and the product allows for more possibilities and enhancements - especially when using Flash."

Jeremy Matthews, managing director of local Macromedia solutions distributor, Dax Data, says ColdFusion MX provides a significant progression to ColdFusion. "The movement toward a Java base, in particular, has been instrumental in making ColdFusion easier to integrate into existing enterprise application systems."

The use of the new ColdFusion Components has also enabled Ernst & Young to develop applications that are more object-oriented which makes it easier for its large development team to share and reuse code.

ColdFusion MX enables flash remoting which extends the application logic therein to other interfaces other than the regular browser page and the relatively low cost of ColdFusion MX has made migration that much easier.

"We will also be starting to expose our application API through Web services now that ColdFusion MX enables them with such ease. This will enable us to easily integrate our applications with client systems," says Brewer.

Grant Jackson, marketing director at Fusion Reactor, the sole Macromedia approved Internet service provider (ISP) in southern Africa, believes the rise in the use of ColdFusion is due to the extended functionality it has to offer. "ColdFusion was, and still is, an extremely powerful Internet tool but it was greatly enhanced with the launch of Coldfusion MX and its significantly improved functionality," he says.

Web services, custom tags, Flash Integration and the XML capabilities of ColdFusion MX make it possible to deploy applications in a fraction of time, compared with other Internet platforms with deployment to the Internet being done in an extremely short time frame.

"With the MX family of products, Macromedia has set the standard for what can be done on the Internet. In short, MX already delivers what the rest have just started talking about," he proclaims.

According to both Jackson and Brewer, ColdFusion MX provides an integrated development environment that goes beyond coding to include graphic design and front-ends through Flash, while still retaining the ease of development that ColdFusion has always delivered.

Karaki notes that it was for this reason that ColdFusion MX`s scalability was a critical factor in SA Tourism`s decision-making process. "We were taking this giant leap into cyberspace, and putting a lot of resources behind it since it is well known that more people purchase travel on the Internet than any other category of goods or services. We needed a package that would scale as the content and traffic to the site grows.

"With ColdFusion MX, we are comfortable in the fact that if, at any point, there are a million people clicking onto our site a day, it will scale and handle anything we need."

Brewer believes that Macromedia will continue to grow in SA since it has an excellent product set that is gaining greater awareness and support in the country. "The population of the ColdFusion user group bears testimony to the increased interest and the cost-effectiveness of the product should be a positive factor to consider, especially in SA where the exchange rate makes competing products significantly more expensive," he concludes.