ASP.NET vs Cold Fusion

[CSDunn]

Hello,
My boss is considering the purchase of a calendar/scheduler program for our
school district, and part of the setup calls for the installation of
Macromedia's Cold Fusion software. My bosses condition for the purchase of
this software is that the company we are purchasing from support the entire
application, and that our understaffed I.T. department not have to.

I was hoping to come up with an application using the calendar control with
ASP.NET, but due to the work load of current SQL Server database projects,
there is no way I will have time to even start one for a good while.

Anyway, I was hoping to get some feedback about Cold Fusion. This is what I
understand about Cold Fusion:

1. Its proprietary to Macromedia
2. The licensing is expensive (so I've heard)
3. It is not as popular now as it was a year or two ago (so I've heard)

I don't even know that I need to worry about it if the company we are
purchasing from is going to 100% take care of the support for the product.
On the other hand, I need enough information to decide whether or not a
product run on cold fusion is going to be enough of a problem to discontinue
any further consideration of the product. We are a Microsoft shop running
Windows 2000 Server of one flavor or another on all of our servers, and XP
on most of the desktops.

If you happen to have knowledge about Cold Fusion that you could pass along,
or reason that I should have concern about purchasing software build around
Cold Fusion, please let me know.

Thanks for your help!

Chris Dunn

[Ben A]

1. Yes and no. ColdFusion is but CFML is not (lookup BlueDragon).
ColdFusion/CFML will run on multiple platforms such as Linux, Solaris, and
others. I should also note that BlueDragon will integrate with .NET within
the next little while.

2. Licensing is not free, but the cost per project is usually cut in half
when using ColdFusion over ASP or PHP or JSP. It's really worth the upfront
cost, with huge time and resource savings over the course of a single
project. If you purchase CFMX for Linux, you're paying about the same as
Windows Server 2003 with ASP included. If you want to save money, CFMX is a
good choice.

3. There are over 300,000 CF developers, not as many as ASP but still quite
a large army. It's popularity has skyrocketed in recent years, especially
now with Rich Internet Applications (RIA) using Flash Remoting and
ColdFusion together.

Macromedia really seems to have their stuff together.

If you have any more questions, let me know.

Ben


"CSDunn" <cdunn@valverde.edu> wrote in message
news:OxLKyUSVDHA.2316@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...

> Hello,
> My boss is considering the purchase of a calendar/scheduler program for

our

> school district, and part of the setup calls for the installation of
> Macromedia's Cold Fusion software. My bosses condition for the purchase of
> this software is that the company we are purchasing from support the

entire

> application, and that our understaffed I.T. department not have to.
>
> I was hoping to come up with an application using the calendar control

with

> ASP.NET, but due to the work load of current SQL Server database projects,
> there is no way I will have time to even start one for a good while.
>
> Anyway, I was hoping to get some feedback about Cold Fusion. This is what

I

> understand about Cold Fusion:
>
> 1. Its proprietary to Macromedia
> 2. The licensing is expensive (so I've heard)
> 3. It is not as popular now as it was a year or two ago (so I've heard)
>
> I don't even know that I need to worry about it if the company we are
> purchasing from is going to 100% take care of the support for the product.
> On the other hand, I need enough information to decide whether or not a
> product run on cold fusion is going to be enough of a problem to

discontinue

> any further consideration of the product. We are a Microsoft shop running
> Windows 2000 Server of one flavor or another on all of our servers, and XP
> on most of the desktops.
>
> If you happen to have knowledge about Cold Fusion that you could pass

along,

> or reason that I should have concern about purchasing software build

around

> Cold Fusion, please let me know.
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> Chris Dunn
>
>

[Bob Lehmann]

About your answer to #2...

How is the cost per project cut in half using CF over the other
technologies?

In his case they are a Windows shop so they already have an OS, ASP, and the
DotNet Framework is free.

PHP is also free.

Bob Lehmann

"Ben A" <microsoft@monkeon.com> wrote in message
news:eoknM1SVDHA.2032@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...

> 1. Yes and no. ColdFusion is but CFML is not (lookup BlueDragon).
> ColdFusion/CFML will run on multiple platforms such as Linux, Solaris, and
> others. I should also note that BlueDragon will integrate with .NET

within

> the next little while.
>
> 2. Licensing is not free, but the cost per project is usually cut in half
> when using ColdFusion over ASP or PHP or JSP. It's really worth the

upfront

> cost, with huge time and resource savings over the course of a single
> project. If you purchase CFMX for Linux, you're paying about the same as
> Windows Server 2003 with ASP included. If you want to save money, CFMX is

a

> good choice.
>
> 3. There are over 300,000 CF developers, not as many as ASP but still

quite

> a large army. It's popularity has skyrocketed in recent years, especially
> now with Rich Internet Applications (RIA) using Flash Remoting and
> ColdFusion together.
>
> Macromedia really seems to have their stuff together.
>
> If you have any more questions, let me know.
>
> Ben
>
>
> "CSDunn" <cdunn@valverde.edu> wrote in message
> news:OxLKyUSVDHA.2316@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...

> > Hello,
> > My boss is considering the purchase of a calendar/scheduler program for

> our

> > school district, and part of the setup calls for the installation of
> > Macromedia's Cold Fusion software. My bosses condition for the purchase

of

> > this software is that the company we are purchasing from support the

> entire

> > application, and that our understaffed I.T. department not have to.
> >
> > I was hoping to come up with an application using the calendar control

> with

> > ASP.NET, but due to the work load of current SQL Server database

projects,

> > there is no way I will have time to even start one for a good while.
> >
> > Anyway, I was hoping to get some feedback about Cold Fusion. This is

what

> I

> > understand about Cold Fusion:
> >
> > 1. Its proprietary to Macromedia
> > 2. The licensing is expensive (so I've heard)
> > 3. It is not as popular now as it was a year or two ago (so I've heard)
> >
> > I don't even know that I need to worry about it if the company we are
> > purchasing from is going to 100% take care of the support for the

product.

> > On the other hand, I need enough information to decide whether or not a
> > product run on cold fusion is going to be enough of a problem to

> discontinue

> > any further consideration of the product. We are a Microsoft shop

running

> > Windows 2000 Server of one flavor or another on all of our servers, and

XP

> > on most of the desktops.
> >
> > If you happen to have knowledge about Cold Fusion that you could pass

> along,

> > or reason that I should have concern about purchasing software build

> around

> > Cold Fusion, please let me know.
> >
> > Thanks for your help!
> >
> > Chris Dunn
> >
> >

>
>