Ok so you may have seen the recent posts on Web 2 point whatever. Macromedia vs Microsoft etc. I thought I would post my take. And really it is just my take. So im not going to mention blogs or names because its to easy to piss people off. Is it just me or have thing really livened up in the last six months on MXNA and fullasagoog? Any way onto my take.

First point to make for me is "Content is King". Yep, whats the internet without its webpages, whats a printer without something to print on it, whats a pub without beer? Just dumb. So really were are talking about here is delivery methods for this content.

Second point which alot of people are missing now. Macromedia is now Adobe!

So what we have now is a bit of a face off. Microsoft controls the office world with word (and that damn pain in the ass powerpoint. If I get another client supplying images in powerpoint files ill go postal). And of course with a click of a button your word document  becomes a PDF and you can sleep well at night knowing your pdf file can be on the web safe from tampering etc. Most of this stuff is relevant to the business world, which is co-incidently is where these companies make most their money.

Now with word docs, sparkle, .NET and this thing called Microsoft Live, your starting to see the delivery method. Then we look at Adobes content creation tools, Pdfs from word, Adobes life Cycle server, you can see the hole that the aquisition of Macromedia filled. BOOM! the two come head to head. (Incidently this is why I think we may be witnessing the last few years of flash paper. Pity I loved how small and quick it was. And it didnt crash firefox like acrobat reader does).

 Ok so where am I heading with this? The next version of Acrobat will have 3d capabilities. They are targeting this at Cad related industries. This is huge in itself. Imagine pretty much everything we touch today has had CAD involved along the line, so this is a great market to get document workflow going in offices and organisations. Use this to set standards and break it into a market that is booming. Throw in Life cycle server and you have versioning security ………….. Pdfs are the standard distributing method for many documents and soon many more. The reader is on millions of machines now. Flash is becoming that for the web where the content is slightly more interactive. Throw in flex2 and it opens up further.

Theres your delivery method for Adobe. This means Microsoft has has to do some work.

What does Microsoft do. It includes Native PDF in its OS, it releases Sparkle which is still an unknown, and to combat the flash/flex area it seems to be betting its money on AJAX and .NET. but its behind the 8Ball (hehehe pun) because the competition is already in the market and being used.

So what Web 2point ohhhhhhh nooo means for me is the big boys are facing off over delivery methods that they are working on for the future of Content. One might suit a particular content I might be working on better than the other. So be it. I personally like working with flash and more recently Flex (pitty im stuck with .NET at work).

Now who do you think would be the next to jump into this bit of Biffo. Google lifts the ropes checks its gloves and enters the ring. All the talk of Google office has me thinking. Will Google pull a "Google" and announce an office system online next week. what ever happens there, I think its safe to say it will be interesting.

Finally I would like to quote a blog entry (no names remember):

"I feel like I’ve been unplugged from the matrix, and you’re all fighting over which Agent Smith is real and which is CG, while I’m too busy focusing on the fact that if I could some how combine Laura Croft, General Ledger and Martial arts API together, I’d have one bad ass hotty who can count and run on all of the above?"

Thats right I want to plug this Mr Anderson back in and just keep on playing while waiting on things to unfold.  In the "Real World" I work for a resonably large company. I do what Im told ( hey you have to do your time ), I code the features they want in the technology Im told to, when I come home I play with other technologies, jump back into the Matrix and try and find a way to code the Hot blonde in the Red dress. I jump on whatever will make my CONTENT look or be cool.

 So really get over it and start making some of this cool (and well delivered) content so I can saying to the young developers when I was young it took five weeks coding to do that, in the snow, while whistling into a modem because modems were all dailup.