If you haven't had a chance to dig into ColdFusion 8 yet, a great way to get overviews of the features and benefits is through our free eseminar series which is starting up again in July. You can register for eseminars here: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=506273&loc=en_us

We have a good line up of sessions including:

What's New in ColdFusion 8
Tuesday, July 8, 2008 10:00 A.M. PDT
Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:00 A.M. PDT
Your lives as developers just got easier. In this 60 minute overview, explore the most feature rich version in ColdFusion's history and learn how ColdFusion 8 will make you more productive today with built-in support for native .NET objects, MS Exchange, PDF documents and forms, Ajax and Flex, code debugging, server monitoring and more.

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ColdFusion-powered Rich Internet Applications
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 10:00 A.M. PDT
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 10:00 A.M. PDT
Learn the new benefits of ColdFusion and Flex built-in integration, advantaging ColdFusion developers with end-to-end Rich Internet Application capabilities. Take ColdFusion Components you previously wrote for traditional HTML applications and repurpose them to create dynamically powered RIAs - without any changes to your existing code. With ColdFusion 8's Flex integration you will realize improved data performance, a more flexible data exchange, Extensions to Flex Builder and more.

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Beyond HTML: Using Ajax, PDF, and More to Create Engaging Applications with ColdFusion 8
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 10:00 A.M. PDT
Today's application users demand far more than simple HTML web applications: they want rich desktop-like application interfaces, personalized multimedia experiences, printable and portable content, and more. This 60 minute session will show how Adobe ColdFusion 8 delivers these and other engaging application experiences with features like Ajax support, on-demand multimedia presentation generation, and PDF document and form applications.

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The ColdFusion 8 Server Monitor
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 10:00 A.M. PDT
How can you write bulletproof code, fine-tune applications for top performance, and know that your server is meeting the highest load demands without making your users wait? You can use the new Performance Monitor in Adobe ColdFusion 8. This 60 minute session will introduce the Server Monitor and show you how you can use it to diagnose and fix problems in ColdFusion applications, and react to and avoid problems that may arise once an application is deployed in production.

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You're wondering, EMEA?! EMEA stands for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Now that we have that covered, onto exciting introductions. Claude Englebert joined the ColdFusion team at Adobe last week as the ColdFusion account manager for EMEA. Some of you may know Claude already as he is a long time member of the ColdFusion community. Claude has a strong track record in the CF. Starting as journalist, Claude started worked in the IT industry when he joined a Canadian hosting company named Nexx Online in the late nineties. In 2002, he ran his own business under the name of Aberis, a company that specialized in offering tailored hosting solutions for ColdFusion applications. Claude's also done extensive ColdFusion development.

In this role Claude will work directly with customers and partners to drive the ColdFusion accounts in EMEA. You can contact him directly if you want to purchase CF, start a partnership with Adobe re: CF, or have some questions related to buying licenses or support offerings from Adobe.

Claude's contact info:

email: cenglebe at adobe dot com

phone: +32 473 966 857

Please join me in welcoming Claude and wishing him a lot of success in his new role.

Great CF8 news all around. First, SIIA announced last night the winners of the 2008 Codie Awards. ColdFusion 8 was named the winner in the Web Services Solution category. http://www.siia.net/codies/2008/winners.asp

Infoworld just posted an article on the winners..

Also, A ColdFusion 8 review posted today in Software Editorial, A UK-based online magazine that specializes in software reviews and recommendations. The review is very favorable, with some great quotes pasted below.

Highlights of the review:

"Companies choose ColdFusion to create complex and robust mission-critical applications for internal and external access. While there are a number of ways to integrate web content with relational data, it is a simple task with ColdFusion, and the support for modern technology (Ajax, .NET and Java) is a valid reason to consider using this product."

"So many positives. The application administration interface is simple and intuitive – it should be no problem for anyone with experience administering a web site or application. And I like the new server monitor, which is an impressive Flash application that is as well organized as any administration interface I've used over the years."

"I believe the ability to dynamically generate PDFs is indispensible. Anyone that ever had to handle source and version control for documents at any company will be pleased that they can keep just one version of each document and let ColdFusion create PDFs as needed. Very nice."

"This is a good product for companies already using older versions of ColdFusion, or companies looking to move older legacy systems to a newer, more robust solution that easily integrates the application and relational database data. The interface is intuitive, just like Adobe's other products, and I did not encounter any errors during my tests. I have used other Adobe products to create and support web applications, but like that ColdFusion lets me build applications – not just linked HTML pages – for use on the internet."

Software Editorial

ColdFusion Review

http://www.softwareeditorial.com/InternetWebDesign/coldfusion.html

May 21, 2008

By Mike Hubbartt

A previous blog entry spoke to the customer evangelism kit I have been working on to give you a tool to bring back to your respective organizations to market and evangelize the product. Throughout the "kit" (still need a better name, more ideas?), I'd like to have customer quotes about ColdFusion. One example is: "With ColdFusion, you don't need an army of developers." - Eric Hoffman, managing partner at Minnesota-based EJH and Associates.

You too could be quoted and in print. Share your one line about CF here and let's see what makes the cut. Gentle warning: I won't be able to use them all and I will be picky. :)

I'm working on this now so please don't delay.

In case you missed it, Ben and I were interviewed in March by Paul Krill at InfoWorld. You can see the article here: Adobe ColdFusion warming to 64-bit OSes. CF is hot stuff - the article was picked up by several other publications shortly after:

- Computerworld
- Computerworld (Australia)
- Digital Arts Online
- Legit Reviews
- PC World (Australia)
- TamilStar.com
- TechWorld
- Webwereld (Netherlands)

Ever wish you could attend eseminars but the time wasn't right? In case you're not aware, we record and post each one on adobe.com here for your convenience:

OnDemand eseminars

Some examples of eseminars include:

- Adding Live Chat with ColdFusion & Adobe Blaze DS
- ColdFusion Powered Rich Apps
- What's New in ColdFusion 8
- The ColdFusion 8 Server Monitor

and many many more...

The anxiously awaited ColdFusion 8.0.1 release went live today on adobe.com.

This release marks extended 64-bit operating system support for Windows, Linux, and Mac. It also delivers the latest operating system support for Windows Server 2008 and Mac OS X 10.5, as well as updates to the latest FCKeditor and more. Read the FAQ to learn more.

You can access 8.0.1 in a few ways:

- Install the full kits from the adobe.com store or trial page

- Install the updater kits from the updater page on top of existing ColdFusion 8 installations.

Now I can stop replying with "verrrrrry sooooooon" in response to "When will Gemeni be out?"

I am often contacted with people requesting information around the future of CF, Adobe's commitment to it, stats around the product and customer references - by people looking to bring that information back to their departments and organizations to champion CF. For those who never reach me, Adam, Ben, Josh or the account managers (Tim/Derek/Dominick) etc, I'd like to provide a package or a kit (still haven't decided on the name of the "kit" - taking suggestions) that can be used as an evangelism tool for customers to bring back to your organizations or share with your customers.

Things I am considering for this kit include:

- Product Roadmap
- Various stats on CF (e.g. 350 active user groups worldwide, 60k unique trial downloads of CF8 since launch and growing, etc)
- Competitive comparison
- Case studies and customer references
- Press references

I want to make the kit as visual and interesting as possible, telling the story behind why CF is healthy and growing and the server side technology of choice.

What would make this most useful to you? (Deducting from what I've seen and heard it would be useful :) )

It's not too late to register for Adobe Developer Week taking place next week: March 24 - March 28, 2008. Dev week is a concentrated week of online seminars all the Adobe platform products from ColdFusion, Flex, Blaze and AIR to Dreamweaver and other CF3 products.

Check out the list of events and to sign up: http://adobe.com/go/2008_developer_week

I've received several emails asking "when is ColdFusion 8 certification going to be ready?" so I wanted to ge the word out that its been live. You can sign up for the program here: http://partners.adobe.com/public/ace/main.html.

CF8 ACE Program Description: http://partners.adobe.com/public/en/ace/ACE_Exam_Guide_ColdFusion8.pdf

More ACE info: http://www.adobe.com/support/certification/ace.html