Macromedia Inc. Tuesday used its self-titled conference as a platform for a
number of announcements crucial to its evolving business strategy.
Presiding over the Macromedia UCON 2001 in New York City, the company
announced that JRun, the Java technology based application server added to
its product line after its recent merger with Allaire Corp., has passed Sun
Microsystems’Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition J2EE test suite with flying
colors. Just as important, the software company specializing in cutting edge
graphics has teamed with Intel Corp. to inject 3D capabilities into its new
product suite.
Macromedia JRun makes the already developer-friendly J2EE platform broadly
accessible to the entire Java development community. J2EE, the all-business
entity of the Java triumvirate package that includes a standard edition
(J2SE) and mobile edition (J2ME), aims to simplify enterprise applications
by basing them on modular components, and subsequently providing services to
those components, and by handling many details of application behavior
automatically, without extra programming.
In a sector where reliability is crucial, Macromedia hopes that JRun
customers will delight in the notion that they will not experience “vendor
or platform lock-in”; that is, pieces of or entire applications can
interoperate readily. J2EE was created with multitier applications in mind.
Because enterprise applications have to integrate services from a variety of
vendors who employ a number of application models and standards, Java cuts
down some of the development time by being able to operate cross-platform
while perched atop existing database management systems, monitors and
services.
Macromedia JRun delivers capabilities of the J2EE specification in an
integrated server, providing companies the ability to build advanced
business systems for a number of transactions and messaging apps. A
long-time supporter of Sun technologies, Macromedia is an active participant
in the Java Community Process(JCP), the open process that Sun has been using
since 1995 to help Java evolve.
“This is great news for JRun customers looking for the interoperability
gains and assurances that come with compatibility,” said Jeremy Allaire,
chief technology officer, Macromedia.
As for the 3D graphics, those are part and parcel of a platform devised by
Macromedia with chipmaker Intel, announced last July. Created for the
authoring software suite Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio and the corresponding
player, the graphics are empowered by the computer’s central processing unit
as opposed to broadband connections so dancing images such as smoke and
shadows can be displayed on screens without burning too much memory.
Director 8.5 is priced at $1,199.
Macromedia relied on Intel’s technology to compress the 3D graphics. Not surprisingly, this has attracted a number of 3D authoring companies, all of which have agreed to embrace the new products from Macromedia:
Alias|Wavefront, Discreet, Havok, MAXON, NewTek, NxView Technologies, Inc.,
Right Hemisphere, Softimage, and hardware company NVIDIA Corp. Macromedia is
also working with 3D scanning service bureaus, 3D model libraries, digital
rights management tools, and video hardware manufacturers.
In related news, Macromedia said it has bundled support for RealNetworks’
RealAudio 8 and RealVideo 8 technology, which was released two weeks ago. The software company will accommodate the
revamped technologies in its new Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio and
Dreamweaver 4 apps.
Last week, Macromedia bowed FreeHand 10, its new software kit for graphic designers, and Tuesday’s
news should be even more favorable for the company, which competes with
powerful Adobe.
In initiating coverage on Macromedia and chief rival Adobe last week,
investment firm Dain Rauscher Wessels said Adobe is better positioned to
weather the economic storm than Macromedia because it has a deep bench of
non-Web legacy products.
“We expect the contribution from legacy print products, such as Acrobat,
Illustrator and PageMaker to mitigate the impact of the dot-com shakeout and
declining Web publishing expenditures,” the investment firm said, noting
that Adobe will also benefit from revenues incurred from a
higher-than-expected upgrade rate for recent and future releases.”
Such is not the case, Dain Rauscher Wessels said, for Macromedia. The
company said Macromedia has seen light upgrades and said overall demand for
software packages and curbs in IT spending will slow the software maker’s
growth over the next few quarters.
Adobe’s stock has more than doubled up Macromedia’s,
trading at $41.87 to its rival’s $16
price tag Tuesday.
