Director's Future Meeting - Summary and Evaluation
Dean Utian
I plan to give a summary of Wednesday's meeting. I emailed Krishnan after and will talk to him a bit later today (Thursday) to clarify a few things before posting.
Thought I'd create a new thread just to be clear where this summary/evaluation will be located. Feel free to continue the discussion. I am going to put forward my sense of the community response to Krishnan.
regards
Dean
Dean Utian
OK, I said I'd post a summary. Was trying to get additional details from Adobe so could be accurate. Have got some new info. Will post what I have, starting with the questions I forwarded to Adobe. Please note that I what I cover below is simply what I understand Adobe as saying, not my view. I am saying this as there have been comments (in another forum) that I'm just a mouthpiece for Adobe.
Q1. Does Director have a roadmap and what is preventing Adobe from discussing it?
The answer was not very thorough or clear.
The roadmap was described as the current focus for Director being Games and in particular 3D. Part of this involves promoting Shockwave in games portals and taking a 'business model' approach, which is laying the groundwork for Shockwave business.
I spoke to Krishnan today and he said that the payload income is not the focus. They have chosen 3D features for online and offline as it was seen as the most critical area for updating at this stage. The intention is to address media support as the next key focus.
Krishnan mentioned that the Adobe team realise that Director has a lot to do to catch up. They want to get Director into a state with "robust functionality", which would be needed for attracting new users.
Q2. Does the Adobe Director team believe it is sufficiently resourced to meet its roadmap?
The short answer was yes.
Q3. Why is there minimal marketing of Director?
Answer seemed to be along the lines of this 'business model' approach in marketing Shockwave for portals and games. There was nothing to elaborate on why there isn't more marketing to new users, or why there is no dedicated Product Manager or Evangelist. I was told someone is coming on board as marketing, not sure the exact nature of this role.
Q4. Why does Adobe Director have no one to engage with the community?
No real answer - other Adobe staff will take on some community engagement roles but they appear to be spread pretty thin. Allen will do some Director evangelising but focus is on e-learning. Adobe realise they have been falling short in communication and use of social media and will said they will improve in this area.
Talking to Krishnan now, he has said there will be more discussions in the prerelease to start soon. He has also said Adobe would participate in more live discussions like the last one.
Q5. Does Adobe realise the value Xtra developers play to Director and have Adobe considered ways to maintain the life of this important business?
In the meeting, it sounded like Shockwave was the main priority to Adobe, although Krishnan has followed that up with me saying that projector development is just as important. It was mentioned in the meeting (by Adobe) that Xtras can have security issues. Adobe is open to suggestions on how to support Xtras, but is not an priority at this stage.
On the topic of Xtras, someone asked if Adobe would buy the OS Control Xtra. The answer was that Adobe is willing to buy this Xtra. The Xtra has already been sold and the speculation was that Adobe had made that purchase. Tridib said that Adobe have not bough OS Control Xtra.
Q6. How are the 3D capabilities of Director developing?
As mentioned, 3D is the main focus of the next update. Allen spoke about the features already mentioned.
Q7. Is there an intention for Director move to a 64 bit version?
Most Director libraries don't support 64 bit. 64 bit version is a high priority item for Adobe.
Q8. Is there an intention for support of new OS/Platforms? (android, ipad, iphone, symbian, windows 7 mobile, windows 7, the new mac os x version lion, linux, and others)
The intention is to support latest Windows and Mac OSs, nothing else at this stage. Adobe have an interest in mobiles but no immediate plans to move in this direction.
Q10. How is the Adobe team addressing the price of Director, which far exceeds that of other Adobe products, particularly for the education market?
The answer in the meeting suggested that a price change would not necessarily attract more users so the plan was not to make changes. However, further conversations with Krishnan suggests pricing is under review.
Well, that will be all for now.
Dean
CC Chamberlin
On Apr 15, 2011, at 12:55 AM, Dean Utian wrote:
> OK, I said I'd post a summary.
Thanks, Dean. I couldn't make the teleconference, so I appreciate you taking the time to write up a summary.
I'm not sure I understand what is meant by "taking a 'business model' approach":
> The roadmap was described as the current focus for Director being Games and in particular 3D. Part of this involves promoting Shockwave in games portals and taking a 'business model' approach, which is laying the groundwork for Shockwave business.
How is this different than, you know, the business model they had before?
> I spoke to Krishnan today and he said that the payload income is not the focus. They have chosen 3D features for online and offline as it was seen as the most critical area for updating at this stage... Krishnan mentioned that the Adobe team realise that Director has a lot to do to catch up. They want to get Director into a state with "robust functionality", which would be needed for attracting new users.
This is heartening!
CC
Dean Utian
> I'm not sure I understand what is meant by "taking a 'business model' approach"
A while back, Tridib came to Australia on an eLearning promotional thing and I met him to discuss Director. At that point, he talked about this business side as making it easier for Shockwave game developers to get their products into various portals. Since I'm not a SW game developer, I don't know what problems existed and what has changed with this approach.
>> The roadmap was described as the current focus for Director being Games and in particular 3D. Part of this involves promoting Shockwave in games portals and taking a 'business model' approach, which is laying the groundwork for Shockwave business.
>How is this different than, you know, the business model they had before?
Well, it hasn't really changed. As I've mentioned, the roadmap was not fully explained. No long term vision has been communicated. All that we were told is that Adobe is addressing critical issues in an order they believe are in line to community needs. Currently, 3D is the focus and they see that as most relevant to game developers.
>> I spoke to Krishnan today and he said that the payload income is not the focus
After I posted that, Krishnan emailed me (in response to the above) and said that payload is their business model (as we know is a significant source of income) but functionality is not tied to payload considerations. So, it appears they are trying to make the most of the Shockwave income, which would be to be expected, but at least from Krish's perspective, Director's feature development is not being limited by a payload focus.
.>>...They want to get Director into a state with "robust functionality", which would be needed for attracting new users.
> This is heartening!
It is. However, it is a very slow process and Director always seems to be behind the times. I'm using Director MX 2004 in my multimedia classes. For my needs, D11.5 is not all that much better.
Dean
UNDERdog
museum installations in Unity3D.
*snif*
:(
Wim
www.GriN.be
www.UNDERdog.be