Ted Patrick > { Events & Community } > Adobe Systems

I arrived in Tokyo for MAX Japan today after a long day of travel from Milan, Italy. The Hotel Nikko Tokyo (MAX Japan venue) overlooks Tokyo harbor and at night it is a sea of lights. Tokyo is an amazing place and MAX Japan is looking to be world class. MAX Japan is priced a bit differently than the other MAX events and as such we are going to see a huge influx of walk-ins attend. At about 13,000 Yen ( $150 US ), it is easy for anyone to attend both days. Currently there are over 1800 registrations but we will see a huge number of people signing up onsite given the low price. Special thanks to NTT DoCoMo and Nokia for sponsoring and lowering the price for attendees. As with all the other MAX events this year, Japan is shaping up to be an amazing conference.




Check out the MAX Japan Flex session scheduler. It is a really great application to help you select your sessions and purchase your tickets. Great app!

Assuming we go over 2000 registrations at MAX Japan, the MAX events will have reached over 7000 customers representing 100+ countries. It has been an especially great year for MAX and I am sure MAX Japan will be great.

See you in Tokyo, Arrigato!

Ted :)

This Silverlight article over at Informit.com seems to completely ignore Adobe Flex as a solution for creating Adobe Flash Player based rich internet applications and worse highlights a lack of developer tools as a key negative. It seems wrong for a first tier publisher like Sam's to completely ignore a fairly obvious fact that Adobe created 2 development paradigms Flex and Flash to span the market both targeting Adobe Flash Player. Flex 2 was designed from the ground up for developers and the runtime (Flash Player 9) is currently installed on over 93% of end users machines. I agree with Adam (author) that Flash "leaves much to be desired" for developers but we fixed this by releasing 3 generations of Flex and very soon 4.

"The Flash development experience leaves much to be desired, however. Flash (the runtime environment, as well as the tool) suffers from the same basic problem as HTML: Many people are trying to use it for creating rich applications, but it was originally designed for something else (in this case, simple animations)."



Adam, I would recommend you Download Flex 3 Beta 2 and correct this gross omission in your book.

Cheers,

Ted :)

Here are my slides from the Flex Bootcamp at Adobe MAX Europe. I did a presentation called "Flex in 30 Minutes" that covers all the basics of Flex. Please feel free to use this in user group meetings and you have my permission to present this as your own and edit the slides as needed.

PPT File Source


Open Presentation Online (SWF)



Cheers,

Ted :)

We are busy setting up for MAX Europe. I took some images of the CCIB venue and the keynote area.


















MAX Europe is looking to be a great event.

See you in Barcelona!

Ted :)

This morning registration for MAX Europe totaled 1200 and we are officially SOLD OUT in Barcelona. I will be arriving in Barcelona later day as I transit Frankfurt. I am really looking forward to Spain.

See you in Barcelona!

Ted :)

There was a surge in registrations in MAX Europe and there are only 18 registrations left until SOLD OUT.

Consider this a final warning, REGISTER NOW.

See you in Barcelona!

Ted :)

NOTE: Somehow this post got stuck in draft and was set to auto-publish at the MAX Sneaks session. I just noticed it lingering. Uggghhhhh.

Flex is expanding and extending tooling support to Linux and a new IDE code named "Thermo", and a new component set called "Elixir". I wanted to take the time and talk about each as they are major expansions of Flex. We need better workflow, tooling, and components for Flex, period. We have seen Flex grow in scale and many are now using Flex Builder everyday in their jobs, it is time to raise the bar. At MAX we announced 4 initiatives that will dramatically improve things for Flex developers and grow the market for Flex overall.

Flex 3 Builder Linux Alpha
We need first class tooling on all platforms not just Windows or OSX. The growth of Linux and OSX are groundbreaking in developer circles. With every event I go to there are more Apple and Linux laptops in use. Having been on the receiving end of email about FXB on Linux, I am very glad to see us move in this direction.


"Thermo" - From ART to RIA
The "Thermo" project is focused on taking designer ART and creating rich RIA that seamlessly works with all Flex tooling. The toolset shares the same project formats as Flex and will allow a designer to contribute to RIA development directly.

Instead of throwing design comps over the cube wall, designers and developers can work in different paradigms on the same project. I am very excited about the skinning in "Thermo" as it completely inverts the problem allowing designs to output the skin vs trying to re-implement a design in Flex. I cannot tell you how much time this would save me across various projects as I am always asked to implement designs in Flex. I know that "Thermo" is in very good hands at Adobe and its development is one of the companies major initiatives in 2008.


ILOG "Elixir" Component Beta
I started working with ILOG in July of 2006 when I joined Adobe on a project to create a visualization component set for Flex. At MAX, we debuted "Elixir" but this seems to gotten lost in the shuffle of all the other news. ILOG is a professional 3rd party component developer and they make some of the best components in the JAVA/C++/C# market and are now working with Flex. These components are some of the coolest on the market today and are very impressive. Don't take my word for it, run the demos!

Radar Chart


3D Charts (Change the elevation!)


Tree Map


Gantt Chart


Org Chart


Map Charts


It is so great to see the first professional component vendor embrace Flex. ILOG is a leader in visualization components and seeing them doing great things with Flex puts a smile on my face.

Flex Skin Design Extensions
What if you could use Fireworks, Flash, Photoshop, and Illustrator to skin Flex? In that one more thing category, these extensions for CS3 make Flex Skinning a first class citizen in your favorite tools. Now we can all make skins that rival Juan over at ScaleNine!

Unless you are living under a rock, one thing should be VERY CLEAR: It is time to learn Flex!

Cheers,

Ted :)

We are within 110 registrations from being SOLD OUT in MAX Europe. If you are planning to walk-in or register late, register now. We saw 30-40 registrations a day over the last week and if this continues we will be SOLD OUT in MAX Europe this week.

Tomorrow starts a very long world tour for me that will last until Nov 9. I will be visiting Frankfurt, Barcelona, Milan, Tokyo, London and the surrounding areas during my month of travel to MAX Europe, MAX Japan, Flex Camps, and FOTB. It is a mountain of air time and I am looking forward to catching up on some long lost projects (IFBIN, FLOW) and visiting with lots of customers along the way.

If you haven't registered for MAX Europe, get on it! I am pretty sure it will be SOLD OUT soon.

Cheers,

Ted :)

Seems to be a big upswing in registrations for MAX Europe and this morning the conference exceeded its attendance goals. I need to check with the team on the number of people we can support in Barcelona but it will be a full house regardless. I am really looking forward to my trip to Spain next week. I spent a summer in Salamanca, Spain and I have always wanted to go back. At some point next week you will catch me blogging in the Plaza Major.

Seems like MAX Japan is also on a roll, they have 1100 registrations with a goal of 2000. MAX is going big world-wide.

See you in MAX Europe and Japan!

Ted :)

We had a special guest at the MAX Partner Pavilion but something seemed a bit suspicious. Regardless if it was Bono or Fake Bono, his presence at the sponsor reception was awesome.

Cheers,

Ted :)

MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 MAX BOF/MTT SESSION ROOMS 170-190 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

In your email inbox today you might receive an announcement from me regarding new packaging and pricing for Flex 3. Flex Builder 3 will ship in two editions: Flex Builder 3 Standard edition ($249 US) and Flex Builder 3 Professional edition ($699 US). Additionally on Nov. 1, we are repricing Flex 2 to align with Flex 3 and providing support upgrade options for Flex 3 starting at $99.



Here is a detailed FAQ on the issues:

Q: When will Flex 3 be released?
A: Flex 3 is currently planned to be released in early 2008.

Q: How will Flex 3 be packaged?
A: Flex Builder 3 will have two new editions: Flex Builder 3 Standard edition and Flex Builder 3 Professional edition. The Professional edition has all the great features from the Standard edition, plus the charting and visualization components, the profilers, and the Flex test automation framework.

Q: How much will Flex Builder 3 cost?
A: Flex Builder 3 Standard edition will sell for $249 US. Flex Builder 3 Professional edition will sell for $699 US. You should also note that effective November 1, 2007, we will be aligning the price of Flex Builder 2 with these new prices so you can purchase copies of Flex Builder 2 now for these same prices.

Q: If I purchase Flex Builder 2, am I eligible for an upgrade to Flex Builder 3?
A: To be eligible for a free of charge upgrade to Flex 3, you will need to purchase maintenance along with the purchase of Flex Builder. Effective November 1, 2007, you can purchase maintenance with Flex Builder 2 for $99 US which makes you eligible for a free-of-charge copy of Flex Builder 3 Standard edition when it ships. Also effective November 1, 2007, you can purchase maintenance with Flex Builder 2 with Charting for $299 US and become eligible for a free-of-charge copy of Flex Builder 3 Professional edition when it ships.

Q: Can I still purchase Flex Charting for Flex 3?
A: No. Because we had limited interest in the use of Flex Charting as a separate offering, charting will now only be available in the Professional edition. When Flex 3 is released, we will be offering an upgrade path from Standard to Professional editions.

Q: Can I add charting to the Flex Builder Standard edition?
A: Yes, by upgrading from Standard to Professional you will get the charting components, plus the profilers and the test automation framework.

Q: Is it true that I can now get the Flex Test Automation framework with the purchase of Flex Builder 3 Professional edition?
A: Yes. With Flex 3 we will be changing the licensing for the Flex Test Automation Framework and it will be a feature of the Professional edition.

Q: Will the Flex Skin Extensions for CS be part of the Flex 3 release?
A: We will most likely ship the final versions of the Skin Extensions with the Flex 3 release. Although packaging has not been finalized, because they are extensions to CS3, they will most likely be released separately, in parallel with Flex 3.

Q: How long can I use the Flex Builder 3 beta 2 software? Can I extend the time limit?
A: Because the Flex Builder 3 beta product includes all of the features within the Flex Builder 2 product, the beta expires after 60 days. You can unlock the beta by entering a valid Flex Builder 2 serial number if you have one.


Cheers,

Ted :)