March 27, 2008
Our Flex 3/AIR 1.0 launch meeting went really well, thank you all for coming.
Now its time to meet again, this time I thought it would be cool to get some insight in Flex’s competition Silverlight. Even though we are a Flex User Group, I believe it’s important for everyone working in the RIA space to understand all the technology options available and make informed decisions when selecting the RIA technology for our next project. With this in mind I managed to convince Microsoft’s Silverlight Evangelist Pandurang Nayak to come and present an Introduction to Silverlight at out our next meeting on the 28th.
It will be a very interesting discussion, so try and be there.
Click here to Register
While on the subject, I have also set up a quick survey on surveymonkey to help improve the Bangalore Flex User Group meetings, so please take a minute to provide some feedback.
Take the Survey read more
March 25, 2008
Vivek started a very interesting discussion on his blog where he’s questioning Adobe’s decision to not have a MAX in India this year. His post is full of sentiment and disappointment and I totally share the disappointment with him, I was very excited when Ted Patrick hinted that Bangalore was being considered but when the final locations were announced it was a bummer 
The discussion in the comments of Vivek’s post has been quite interesting … Abdul expressed that it might not be very practical from an organizers perspective, given that the Adobe community in India is still quite nascent and I kinda agree with him having had the experience of organizing initRIA and several local FUG meets. That said I also feel that its quite a tough judgement call and I hope that Adobe would have given Bangalore due diligence before rejecting it.
Peter Elst also joined the discussion and expressed a very important point that I totally agree with …
Adobe has an opportunity and needs to step up to the plate, failing that it takes little for Microsoft to start actively pushing out their technology to developers and tip the balance of the current ‘outsourcing ecosystem’.
Its just a matter of time for Microsoft to push more money into it and start promoting Silverlight. I firmly believe Adobe needs to be ahead of the curve here.
Yes, Adobe needs to step up and stay ahead of the curve here in India, before it becomes economically more practical for organizations to build RIAs using Microsoft’s technologies, even though the Flash Platform is a better option technologically.
Now is organizing MAX in India the way to stay ahead of this curve? I don’t think so …. events in general is definitely one area but there are several other things that Adobe needs to spend time and money on, as far events are concerned, we have gone from no events in 2007 to some events in 2008 .. thats not too bad.
So here are the things that Adobe needs to do to stay ahead of the curve and MAX is not what we really need at this point ..
- Adobe needs to solve the problem of Books,there are very few Flex, Flash, AS3 books available in India (mostly only the O’Rielly ones)
- Adobe needs to solve the problem of Developer Training, there is currently only one company providing professional training on Adobe’s Technology Platform in india.
- Adobe needs to fix the problems related to buying Adobe software in India, it takes 4+ weeks to buy a copy of Flex Builder in India
- Adobe needs to penetrate the education system better, Microsoft VC++/C# are taught as compulsory subjects in 3rd year Computer Science Engineering in most of the 1200 or so engineering colleges in India. Microsoft also has a very active Student Partners program.
- Adobe needs to educate the big Software services players Infosys, TCS, Wipro and the like and have them endorse Adobe’s technologies. Microsoft’s technologies are taught as specialties in the training centers of these companies, which are like universities in themselves and churn out thousands of fresh new professionals every year.
Thus in my opinion Adobe’s time and resources are better spent in the above areas rather than in a big event like MAX . I’m not saying that events are not important, I would totally love it if we had a MAX in India .. but right now that is not my biggest demand from Adobe. read more
March 16, 2008
Last year, many of us RIA enthusiasts in India were kinda disappointed with the lack of RIA related events in India, so very close to the end of last year I with some other members from BangaloreFX helped organize the very first RIA focused event in the country initRIA and it was a big success.
Things are very different this year, from the very beginning of the year I started to feel that RIAs were getting a lot of traction in the local circles and we have a lot of fun in store for India this year. In February all the Flex user groups in the county celebrated the launch of Flex 3 and AIR 1.0 and we now have some excellent events lined up already … here’s a list of events that have already been announced …
These are the events that have already been announced, I know there are many others that are being planned … there’s word that we might even have an Adobe MAX in Bangalore this year..
So lets get ready to party !! read more
March 6, 2008
I’ve been meaning to buy my copy of Flex Builder 3 since the release, but as it turns out Adobe does not have an online store for India, so you have buy adobe software via resellers .. there are 10 resellers listed in Bangalore, I have called all of them in the last few days .. some of them did not even now that Flex Builder 3 has been released and the others told me that if I place my order today I will get Flex Builder in 3 to 4 weeks, You’ve got to be kidding me !!
I know that Abdul had complained about this first in March 2006 and then again in Jan 2007 … yet another year has passed since and still nothing has changed.
Adobe, we have a huge community of Flex developers in India, please do something about this soon, its hurting your business and its painful for us your customers. I was all set to buy CS3 Web Premium last month, but I didn’t because I realized I would need to go to the reseller for it (ya I’m lazy) .. I don’t really need CS3, it was spur of the moment that i wanted to buy it .. but the fact that there was no online store and I couldn’t get it immediately at 2 in the night put me off …. I now use Aviary Phoenix and Picnik .. they serve most of the needs I have. Unfortunately I don’t have such an alternative for FlexBuilder, its an excellent tool and I can’t live without it … so adobe please fix this. read more
March 2, 2008
Flex India is a community for Adobe Flex developers across India where we discuss everything related to Rich Internet Application development using the flash platform.
As far as I know, the group was started somewhere in mid July of 2006 by Manish Jethani, it stayed quite dormant during its early months, about a year ago it had 43 members and the number of discussions was starting to increase, today as we speak the group has 1003 members and 1079 messages were posted last month. A few months ago, Raghu had done an analysis of how well the group was doing..
The rate of growth of Flex India has been amazing and its indicative of the growth Flex adoption is seeing in India .. so as Flex India hits this landmark of 1000 members I want to congratulate everyone who has helped make this community a success. Cheers !! read more
