Macromedia Announces Immediate Availability of ColdFusion MX 7

    Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

    SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 7, 2005--

    New version extends the Internet to mobile devices and delivers groundbreaking rich forms support, reporting, and printing solutions

    Macromedia (Nasdaq:MACR) today announced the immediate availability of Macromedia(R) ColdFusion(R) MX 7, previously code-named "Blackstone." ColdFusion is the fastest, easiest way to build and deploy powerful Internet applications. Developers are already embracing the latest version of the ColdFusion application server (see attached quote sheet) and solving development challenges with new printable web content, rich forms, more flexible deployment options, and integrated, structured business reporting. ColdFusion MX 7 also provides cost-effective and powerful innovations to interact with mobile phones using short message service (SMS) text messaging. To purchase or learn more about ColdFusion MX 7, please visit http://www.macromedia.com/go/cfmx7/.
    "Macromedia once again makes hard development problems easy to solve with the groundbreaking capabilities available in ColdFusion MX 7," said David Mendels, general manager, Macromedia. "ColdFusion MX 7 provides organizations with the solution to rapidly create Internet applications that deliver clear return on investment and bring a more compelling experience to the end user."
    In addition to web-based applications, ColdFusion MX 7 allows developers to create a new class of Internet applications for the mobile world. These new capabilities provide an easy way to securely extend applications to mobile phone users through SMS text messaging. Applications can also be created for access through instant messaging clients. The latest deployment options enable companies to address a broad range of business needs for today's mobile workforce.
    ColdFusion MX 7 lets developers build more powerful Internet applications in less time than ever before. New rich forms technology empowers developers to easily create superior online forms without having to code all of the presentation-tier logic. Developers can also transform dynamic web content into well-formatted, printable documents in either Macromedia FlashPaper(TM) or PDF formats.
    New business reporting features in ColdFusion MX 7 allow developers to generate affordable, structured business reports in the context of web applications, and give users access to important business data in easy-to-understand formats.
    "The digital world as we know it is changing, and is creating new growth in the application deployment software market for Internet-based applications in the browser and beyond, out to the edge of the Net," said Dennis Byron, vice president, business process automation and deployment software research, IDC. "The open architecture of software like ColdFusion is just what it takes to enable next generation B2B solutions."
    ColdFusion runs as either a standalone application server or on top of leading J2EE application servers, including Macromedia JRun(TM), IBM WebSphere, and BEA WebLogic, bringing the product's legacy of productivity to the scalable, standards-based Java platform. ColdFusion MX 7 provides a new Enterprise Manager that enables administrators to quickly and easily create multiple application instances and adds new levels of high availability and performance. The open architecture of ColdFusion MX 7 continues to make it easy to deploy applications on Windows, UNIX, and Linux platforms.
    "ColdFusion MX 7 promises to be the most developer-friendly version of ColdFusion yet," said Joel Cox, IT project manager, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. "Much of the tedium of interface development is alleviated, allowing developers to spend their time working on the underlying business logic."

    PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

    ColdFusion MX 7 is immediately available in English for purchase in two editions. The Standard Edition includes two CPUs for $1,299. The Enterprise Edition includes two CPUs for $5,999. Volume discounts and government and education licensing are also available. A localized version for Japanese is expected to ship later this year.

    ABOUT MACROMEDIA

    Experience matters. Macromedia is motivated by the belief that great experiences build great businesses. Our software empowers millions of business users, developers, and designers to create and deliver effective, compelling, and memorable experiences -- on the Internet, on fixed media, on wireless, and on digital devices.

    DEVELOPERS PRAISE NEW FEATURES IN MACROMEDIA COLDFUSION MX 7

    American Academy of Neurology

    "We intend on using ColdFusion MX 7 to provide critical, PDF-based reports in our meeting planning application, which helps us prepare all aspects of our members' annual meeting. ColdFusion MX 7 reporting is an impressive addition that allows us to quickly develop and deliver complex reports through the web to our business users. In addition, we will be using the new rich forms feature to provide a better interface to this application for our staff members as well as our annual meeting presenters. ColdFusion MX 7 is spot-on in terms of the features we need."
    - Kurt Wiersma, web applications developer, American Academy of Neurology

    ACD Direct

    "Hand in hand with some of the largest PBS stations across the United States, ACD Direct in partnership with CallsWithoutWalls developed an advanced donation management system that takes in over $10 million a year, through hundreds of thousands of phone calls. Our entire agent base is the 'work-at-home' model, and with ColdFusion, we were able to provide a lightning-fast, cross-browser, easy-to-use interface to our agents. After upgrading to ColdFusion MX 7, I was thrilled with its ability to be used right out of the box. All of my current applications ran perfectly, and within a few minutes I was already transforming content into well-formatted documents and experiencing PDF and FlashPaper nirvana. ColdFusion MX 7 continues to set the standard by offering advanced technologies that far exceed our expectations."
    - Patrick R. Buchanan, chief technology officer, ACD Direct

    America First Credit Union

    "ColdFusion MX 7 is the culmination of nearly everything that I have wanted out of this software. We will definitely upgrade our applications that currently run on ColdFusion MX 6.1 to take advantage of Flash forms and rich printable documents with FlashPaper and PDF. With ColdFusion MX 7, we can do more work in less time and give our users a much better experience than they could get anywhere else."
    - Nathan Petersen, web architect, America First Credit Union

    Amkor Technology

    "Currently our external website, intranet, and customer extranet all run on ColdFusion MX 6.1. We already plan to give our site search engine a major overhaul with ColdFusion MX 7. This new version represents a significant leap forward in the application development platform space. ColdFusion MX 7 software makes it easier than ever for developers to focus on creating exciting and innovative applications."
    - Rob Brooks-Bilson, senior manager, Amkor Technology

    City of Davis, California

    "PDF output is the first ColdFusion MX 7 feature that will be rolled out in our applications, so we can deliver press releases, municipal code, police activity logs, and city council and commission agendas to our citizens using the new document generation feature. The ability to dynamically create PDF documents of our web content will really get our users excited."
    - Seth Duffey, webmaster, City of Davis, California

    County of San Diego, Department of Child Support Services

    "ColdFusion MX 7 adds real end-user value because of the ways it enables us to capture and present information. We will employ ColdFusion MX 7 to drastically improve our printing by using the new document-printing feature, and begin the task of updating our application to use rich forms. Implementing the software on a J2EE application server has never been easier, allowing us to derive all the benefits of J2EE with the scripting ease of ColdFusion."
    - Darius J. Fattahipour, senior IT engineer, County of San Diego, Department of Child Support Services

    Federal Supply Service, U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)

    "The Federal Supply Service, an agency of U.S. GSA, provides services to over one million federal workers. We rely on ColdFusion to develop many of our internal applications to support these services. We plan on taking advantage of the ColdFusion MX 7 J2EE deployment feature, which will allow us to easily package and deploy our web applications to our field offices. We also anticipate developing a system to dynamically convert items such as news or press releases into PDF and FlashPaper documents. With its ease of use, a bounty of features not found in any other application server, and a powerful tag-based language, ColdFusion MX 7 can tame even the most complex web applications."
    - Ryan R. Williams, ColdFusion developer, Federal Supply Service, U.S. GSA

    Georgetown University

    "At Georgetown University, our first application to be developed and run on ColdFusion MX 7 is a website management tool. Before, our students, faculty, and staff had to wait a day or two for simple tasks to get done on their sites. The new application, built with the rich feature set of ColdFusion MX 7, will put the site owner in control and enable developers to be more productive. The continued improvement and maturity of Macromedia products, such as ColdFusion MX 7, provides for a robust rapid application development environment, which enables us to support innovations in teaching and services at Georgetown."
    - Amit Yathirajadasan, senior IS specialist, Georgetown University

    InvestEdge

    "ColdFusion MX 7 is an incredible release. We already plan on moving our enterprise-level, wealth-management, and brokerage platforms to ColdFusion MX 7. By using XForms, we'll be able to create skins that will let us use the controls in our application with just a single line of code. ColdFusion has always been an enterprise-level platform, but these new features may make it 'the' enterprise platform."
    - RC Collins, chief technology officer, InvestEdge

    Peace Corps

    "ColdFusion MX 7 represents the most robust release ever, and enables developers to create feature-packed applications with shorter development schedules and less code than what is possible with other programming languages. Strengthened by new features including the improvement of the user experience with rich forms and printable web content, and the expansion beyond web-related applications into areas like SMS messaging, ColdFusion MX 7 is an amazing product."
    - Steve Ray, IT specialist, Peace Corps

    The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

    "ColdFusion MX 7 allows the Wharton School to develop large scale, Java-based enterprise applications easily, and we already plan on running and developing our Knowledge@Wharton, an online magazine of faculty research and commentary with more than 400,000 subscribers worldwide, and SPIKE, our award-winning student intranet, with this latest version of ColdFusion. With the SMS gateway, we now have the ability to easily adapt our existing infrastructure and expand into an increasingly pervasive mobile environment. ColdFusion MX 7 will not only help us to create better experiences for our users with dynamic generation of electronic documents and printable web content, but the new additions to the language and environment will make it easier to develop then ever before."
    - Kendall Whitehouse, senior director of advanced technology development, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

    Copyright 2005 Macromedia, Inc. All rights reserved. Macromedia, the Macromedia logo, Macromedia ColdFusion, Macromedia FlashPaper, and Macromedia JRun are trademarks or registered trademarks of Macromedia, Inc., which may be registered in the United States and internationally. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

--30--NJ/sf*

CONTACT: Macromedia Heather Miller, 415-553-2725 hmiller@macromedia.com

KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: HARDWARE SOFTWARE NETWORKING INTERNET E-COMMERCE PRODUCT SOURCE: Macromedia

Copyright Business Wire 2005