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ColdFusion on WebSphere, WebLogic

November 22, 2001—Consensus from Macromedia DevCon2001 in Orlando was that ColdFusion developers will more readily deploy their applications on Java servers with the advent of a new release of Macromedia ColdFusion. Code-named "Neo" and due in mid-2002, the suite will allow developers to work in the familiar ColdFusion markup language and then implement their applications on Macromedia's JRun engine, as well as on BEA WebLogic and IBM WebSphere platforms.

The software will benefit Java developers too, said Adam Berrey, vice president of Macromedia's ColdFusion server business unit.

"Java developers need to make their components more accessible to more developers within the organization," said Berrey. "There are only so many people in a company with Java expertise. Neo gives business application developers a really easy development environment."

Phil Hulsey, lead developer at East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, has worked with Cold Fusion "since 3.0" and favors ColdFusion because of an "easy learning curve." He estimates that Neo will better allow his group to run Java server pages alongside Cold Fusion templates.

"It has a tag-based syntax familiar to people who have done Web development," said Hulsey. "This gives us the flexibility to bring people in to get familiarized and get working quickly. We have a stateful EJB that [another Carolinian IT department] provided us for credit card processing. It would be nice for developers in these two environments to work side by side."

About the Author

Rich Seeley is Web Editor for Campus Technology.