Macromedia's Platform for Rich Application Development: Central

Kevin Lynch lets us in on Macromedia's new platform for Rich Apps. The whole thing looks like a cross between Windows Catalog and the MSN Dashboard.

Don't see a lot of real world value in it yet. I mean, number one on the list in their "productivity apps" section is called, "Internet App Pack: First AppPack of Fun Internet Apps," ie. games and gadgets to distract you from what you should be doing. In their little "visualize how this works" piece, they tell the story of Lisa. Here is how Lisa's day starts:

6:00 AM: Lisa gets up, checks the movie listings, weather, recipie of the day, and orders her grocieries for the day.

6:10 AM: Lisa quickly checks her email and wakes up the kids

7:50 AM: Lisa is riding the train to work. She checks the weather and looks at the movie listings.

8:30 AM: Lisa gets some coffee and buys an iPod off of eBay using Central.

9:00 AM: Lisa arrives at work and notices that her first meeting isn't for an hour, so she checks her mail and reads some blogs.

10:00 AM: Lisa goes to her meeting. What a productive day so far!

So, four hours into her day, Lisa has done absolutely nothing but surf the net. Meanwhile, the Iron Developer has already developed and deployed four rich client applications. Maybe this is why I just don't connect with Macromedia on this whole Flash is the "next generation" thing...Their definition of "productive" is a little more like an Iraqi Militiaman's than mine is.

[1] Macromedia Central
http://www.macromedia.com/software/central/

[2] Internet Applications: A New Frontier
http://www.macromedia.com/software/central/whitepaper/central_wp.pdf

[3] Macromedia Central: Screen Shot
http://www.macromedia.com/software/central/central_lg.html