This is an incredible story.
Taken from Yahoo.
(gave me that warm fuzzy feeling)
=============================
messages.yahoo.com can some technical guy give us their
by: cf_programer2000 9/16/00 5:27 am
Msg: 6881 of 6886
So ya wanna know about CF from a techies viewpoint? Okay... here she goes, and I'll conclude with my uneducated guess on the cause of the recent tanking down to $16.
I've been using Cold Fusion since version 2.0 came out several years ago - it's now version 4.5 (was there ever a version 1.0???). Version 2.0 cost me $395 about 4 years ago. Version 4.5 (the latest) now has several flavors - an NT version, a (okay, not real) unix version, the "Professional" and the "Enterprise" Versions for NT are probably the most prevalent. Professinal costs $1300, and the Enterprise costs 5 big ones ($5,000). Pretty substantial jump me thinks. Ask yourself what the impact of this steep a price jump can cause... more on this in a bit.
Why cold fusion? I started using CF four or five years ago because I wanted to niche in to the database web market - everyone's mother's son was starting to do html (you too can be a web developer for only $19.95, operators are standing by) and I needed a niche. CF let me attack that market with an extremely short learning curve, and very little out-of-pocket expense. (easy in, easy out??). True, I have an advanced degree in computer science so it's pretty much second nature to me anyway but, CF was probably the easiest language I have ever had to learn. I was creating sellable websites in less than a month, and all it cost me was the $395 entry fee and a one month learning curve - sweet. At that time, Mickey Soft's ASP was not in the picture, nor was there anything else even close to CF, so the decision to go to CF at that time was a no-brainer. At that time, there was probably less than a few hundred of us (were there even that many of us??) that could find our way around cold fusion.
In the beginning, Allaire had a couple of other products that they were also peddling - a "forums" package (a kind of bulletin board system - similar to this one on Yahoo but much more powerful), and a new product, a pretty much useless (at the time) web editor called Homesite - real web developers use NOTEPAD :)
Well, allaire seemed hell-bent on pushing that forums package and that webeditor but it soon became clear that the demand for Cold Fusion would surpass their other offerings.
Hell, you could get the #1 web editor at that time (Hot Dog Pro) for a big $19 (one carton of cigs at that time), and FREE if you didn't need all of their dinky add-ons.
Hmmmmm... where did I hear about a FREE package competing against one that cost money?? Can you say Netscape and Explorer? Netscape went from a virtually 100% market share down to...., well, it was a nasty fight - big brother Willy (Bill Gates - he likes me to call him Willy) won that battle. Somehow FREE seems easier to market. Duh.
part TWO continues in next post...
===================================
Part TWO - Techie comments continued
by: cf_programer2000 9/16/00 5:32 am
Msg: 6882 of 6886
Part two of a techies comments.
My early years... I hated allaire's 'highly-touted' support. Their online forums were full of unanswered pleas for help - the same question or problem being asked by dozens of developers, for weeks on end. Try explaining that to the client that you were building a db website for - "Sorry, I'm gonna be late on getting the thing finished because I can't get no F?*^#@ support". Since it was a new product, there were very few experts - we were all learning on our own, and had to rely on the Allaire boiz (and girlz) for help. Try the bookstore? "Cold Fusion - isn't that something to do with nuclear energy". Not today buckwheat... it was years before the first book came out. It was difficult to say the least but still, we always seemed to find a way to overcome (or in most cases, work-around) whatever problem we were having.
A bit more on this "support" (or lack of) thingie. Allaire would happily SELL you support - help you if you were willing to pay (if I remember correctly) $80 bux an hour to get the problem resolved. Think about this grasshopper - we got in because it was cheap ($395) and in my case at least, because I was cheap! Heck, I didn't have the moola to pay for the support and, it kinda ticked me off that in 3 or 4 hours, I could have paid more in support to solve one single problem than I did for the entire software package. We did NOT like the scenario, but crap, the product was still making us money, and even with all of it's faults and bugs, it still did a pretty good job on a database - just about ANY database. Man, that sucker worked on Fox Pro, Microsoft Access, SQL, heck... it was GREAT.
Slowly but surely, our numbers increased and soon, there were thousands of us. Now we didn't need the allaire support - we still hit AllAir's site for the forums but, we got our answers from each other. Cold fusion apps started popping up everywhere - what a neat time. Man, we were spreading the news like it was the second coming - we loved it, it was cheap, it worked, and we were making our mark in an industry that was exploding. The force was with us.
"Hey did you hear the news?? Allaire is going public! Wow... I knew them when...", well, you know how that story went.
"Hey, what happened to the price of that software?" Crap, it was shooting up faster than the price of their damn stock (ipo=$20/share)! I say "damn" because even though $20 is cheap, thar ain't no shares to be bought by peons like me - all the shares got sucked up by the big boys.
Okay sage investors... what was the impact here ? No, not the price of the stock duffus - this is a lesson on techs, not a lesson on PE ratios, or bollinger bands - I'm talking about the price increase of their cold fusion software. Yep, the little guys (the ones with no bux) became few and fewer, being replaced by the big companies that could afford the now "are you friggin nuts?" price of their software. Cracks for Allaires software started showing up everywhere - spend 10 minutes searching and you could turn that evaluation copy (freely available as a download from their website) into a full blown, full featured version. Can you start to see a shift of who "WAS" using the product to who was "NOW" using the product??? There were those that COULD afford it, and those that could NOT afford it. Those that could not, simply found "ways" that they "could" afford it (if you get my drift).
Support on the forums was still dismall at best but lo and behold, those same deep-pocket companies were now the players in this business and I'm guessing, were more than happy to shell out a couple of grand for answers and support.
Stay tuned for the last and final episode, part three!
===================
Part THREE - Techie comments cont.
by: cf_programer2000 9/16/00 5:35 am
Msg: 6883 of 6886
Okay, so we saw the shift of users (developers), and we saw the shift in price. What will this do for the non-tech investors of this stock?
btw, we [still] have seen NO SHIFT in their on-line forums support. Don't believe me?? Go to their site, click into their forums support area (where the developers hang out), and see how many questions are answered (sometimes with wrong answers or bad advice, usually with no rebuttal or reclarification by Allaire) by other developers (or those that shoulda stuck with doing straight html), and other questions that remain unanswered, even after constant "pleas for help". You won't see very many answers from Allaire support personel.
Holy moley... you can get ASP for FREE!! Yep, it is definitely harder to learn than CF but ask yourself... WHO ARE THE LITTLE GUYS IN THIS PICTURE NOW?? Answer: The same guys that were there years ago - the guys wanting to get into this database business, but could not afford the big bux ($5000 for the enterise version - YIPES, where is that crack???).
But wait!!! There is a fundmental diference between us "old timers" and these newbies. These new guys are a LOT more savy and trained than we were - they are picking up that strange ASP stuff like it was.... "second nature". Where did I hear that "second nature stuff before?" A few years ago, a $395 package called Cold Fusion. And, head to the bookstore now and count the number of books you can get on ASP... crap, they are everywhere! (I think Texaco has them at their check-out counters now). Now THEY are spreading the same word we used to preach, but with a small twist... ASP is GREAT and it's FREE!
Want more examples of FREE versus not-so-free.
Can you say Novell vs Windows (free - it's built in) networking? What ever happened to Lantastic? These guys SELL (or as in the case of Lantastic, used to sell) products that networked PC's together. Check out Novell's stock price. Try to find anyone who has even heard of Lantastic. There was once a company that sold a product called PowerLan - without question the absolute best, fastest, and easiest to use networking software on the market. Little known - they were a bunch of propellor heads that didn't have the sense to hire a true management team, but I gotta tell ya, that networking product would knock your dick off. Sorry in advance for offending anyone with that phrase but man, that puppy was slick! Where are they now?? They sleep with the fishes.
See a shift here??? How much is ASP?? How much is Cold Fusion?? How much was Netscape, how much was Explorer? What happened to Netscapes market share? I think I can start drawing a "trend line" here, or at least start talking about multi-coliniarity (sp), cause and effect (you know, those management things we learned when we got our MBA).
Nope - we ain't done yet. Be sure to see the final conclusion.... it's next.
====================
Part Four - Conclusion
by: cf_programer2000 9/16/00 5:36 am
Msg: 6884 of 6886
Allaire ain't dumb... they see the writing on the wall. Out comes the new product offerings.
Okay, how about that Spectra, Jump Start for Windows - this message board is full of people talking it up. A steal at $197,685 (yep, 200 thousand big ones, and that does NOT include the printed documentation, add $50 for that). Holy moley, can I buy two?? Will you take a check??
Maybe I should look at the chevy. How much for that nice JRun "enterprise" package over there with the white sidewalls?? "You guys been touting that horn for some time now - tell me about it." "[big smile on his face - Yep, Good mileage, lots of exposure... and yes, you too can be the proud owner of the 4 CPU license version for only $18,395. Drive it off the lot today???"
Maybe I need to look around a bit more...
People, they got here by going after that small to mid-range market. Are they still?? Those FREE thingies are startin to look better and better huh?? For $200,000, I'll suck it up on the tuff ASP learning curve.
A funny thing happened just the other day. I hired two new programers on my staff (I'm VP of Technical Operations for a large ISP). I had a client that needed a database website. My two new programers, fresh outta school, had NEVER seen or programed in ASP. Before I could tell them that they MUST use cold fusion, they had already picked up enough info to do it in ASP (you know... the free one) - and they did the damn thing in less than three days, and (repeat) with that FREE ASP thingie from Micro$oft.
A new breed of programers here my son, - they picked it up a LOT faster than I picked up cold fusion. Old soldiers never die, they just fade away...
Well, enough said... I apologize for this long diatribe (spelling again, I'm a techie) - it's late (4:00 am) and I can't sleep so I figured I'd blow an hour typing this up.
In conclusion, draw your own conclusion! I still use cold fusion, and will probably continue to do so - can't teach an old dog new tricks - leave with the one that brung ya - I started with CF, and will probably die with them. I won't be using that new stuff - a bit steep for my blood.
oh, I almost forgot... I started off by saying I would give you my guess why it tanked. When it was hovering around that 20+ to 21 range, I told myself that if it hit $20 (the IPO price), that it would drop like a rock because I am thinking that all those institutions that bought at pre-ipo for $20 MUST sell if it ever went a cent below their ipo price. Okay, not all of them, I'm thinking most of them got out when that stock was in the $80+ range. Anyway, sure enough (probably not for my un educated logic), when that puppy hit $20, it tanked to 16 and change. Ouch, that's gonna leave a mark. Will it come back? I hope so... I went long at 33 when I saw it hit the bottom of it's three month bolinger band. Bzzzt, wrong, thanks for playing, go back to your programing techie.
Good nite all. As usual, your mileage may vary, not the opinion of the editorial staff, yada yada yada.
Kindest regards, |
