January 10, 2008 by g.

Wow!

I always had a very high regard for Stephen Elop. I have long felt that the culture of an organization reflects (to some degree) the personality of the CEO. Macromedia did amazing things as an independent company.

When Adobe and Macromedia merged, Stephen joined Adobe as the president of Adobe’s worldwide field operations. When Stephen left Adobe in December 2006, knowing what an awesome (and unique) talent that he was, I fully expected him to be picked up to head something big. But Microsoft?! Wow!

Stephen, best of luck at Microsoft! I do hope that Adobe continues to dominate on the web (including successfully fending of Microsoft’s Expression and Silverlight business initiatives).

Here is the link to Microsoft’s press release:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/jan08/01-10CorpNews.mspx

Posted in esoterica | 1 Comment »

August 3, 2007 by g.

UPDATE:   In comments below, see post by Mark of AuthorwarExtras.co.uk clarifying Authorware’s status as being just “End Of Development (EOD) which is a lot different to End Of Life (EOL).”  Thanks Mark!

I have never worked with Authorware but in my years working with the formerly Macromedia technologies, I have come to know several people who have.  I am posting this blog entry as a courtesy to help get the word out on Authorware’s official EOL (End Of Life).

The following FAQ came to my attention today:

Adobe plans to discontinue development of Authorware® software
http://www.adobe.com/products/authorware/productinfo/faq/eod/

Before posting this entry I searched on Authorware at the Adobe XML News Aggregator.  The most recent post was August 2006, and that was only the third of the 3 posts in the aggregator for all of 2006.  That post, by Adobe’s John Dowdell, was entitled “Adobe guidance” and included a link to an Adobe.com page regarding Adobe solutions for eLearning.  At that time there was promised “a release in the second half of 2007.”  That wasn’t to be and now the product is at end of life.  Yes, Adobe will continue to sell Authorware, but no, there will be no updates (not even for IE7 or Vista).

For anyone who has never heard of Authorware and may be interested in learning more, I offer you the following very nice PDF of an issue of The eLearning Developers’ Journal from September 2003 featuring “An Overview of Authorware 7 — and Its Evolution”:
http://www.elearningguild.com/pdf/2/092203dev-h.pdf

Posted in esoterica | 4 Comments »