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
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