Suggestions for improving the ColdFusion market in Japan
CF9(aka CENTAUR) which will progress greatly is released this year.
What do you think how it will go in Japan?
It depends on marketing plan, right?
Please don't do it like the plan in USA.
The ColdFusion market situation is totally different from USA.
I try to explain the situation here in Japan with the Pareto principle.
Q1. Have you ever heard the word of "ColdFusion"?
NO - 80%
YES - 20%
A question for 20% people of Q1.
Q2. Do you know what the ColdFusion is specifically?
NO - 80%
YES - 20%
# Why is this? There are a couple of reasons.
# At first, there is not ColdFusion as a choice.
# ( programming languages in Japan wikipedia )
# (updated 01/06/2009 : I've added "ColdFusion" and "CFScript"!)
# ( List of computer programming topics in US wikipedia )
# there is few Japanese resources for ColdFusion.
# search engines in Japan show Japanese pages by priority.
# (also many people prefer to use Yahoo! Japan than Google.)
A question for 20% people of Q2.
Q3. Do you use ColdFusion in work?
NO - 80%
YES - 20%
Ok now, the population of software engineer in Japan is more than 500,000. The web engineer supposes 20% of it. So it is 100,000.
Q1. Have you ever heard the word of "ColdFusion"?
YES. 100,000 * 0.2 = 20,000 people
Q2. Do you know what the ColdFusion is specifically?
YES. 20,000 * 0.2 = 4,000 people
Q3. Do you use ColdFusion in work?
YES. 4,000 * 0.2 = 800 people
I do not think that this is an extreme example. Only 800 developers support ColdFusion market in Japan.
What should Adobe do for expanding ColdFusion developers?
Should Adobe recommend ColdFusion to other people?
What do you think how many people try ColdFusion?
They are extremely busy for their own tasks which is related not with ColdFusion but with other programming language.
Ok, there is another simulation.
People who pay attention to the talk of Adobe could be ...
80,000 * 0.2 = 16,000
People who get interest in ColdFusion among those people could be ...
16,000 * 0.2 = 3,200
People who try ColdFusion among those people could be ...
3,200 * 0.2 = 640
People who recommend ColdFusion to their boss could be ...
640 * 0.2 = 128
( This is a very good case. Because many of the Japanese of software development companies are passiveness. )
People(bosses) who adopt the suggestion could be ...
128 * 0.2 = 25
People who try to persuade their customer could be ...
25 * 0.2 = 5
( This is a good case. Because there are not so many development companies that persuade the customer in Japan. )
People(customers) who adopt the suggestion could be ...
5 * 0.2 = 1
This means we might get 1 project by recommanding CF to 16,000 people. But also it might get nothing.
Anyway I suggest three ideas.
If Adobe needs any help for ColdFusion/Flex/AIR,
I'll help Adobe :)
A happy new year
Shigeru Nakagaki :D
What do you think how it will go in Japan?
It depends on marketing plan, right?
Please don't do it like the plan in USA.
The ColdFusion market situation is totally different from USA.
I try to explain the situation here in Japan with the Pareto principle.
Q1. Have you ever heard the word of "ColdFusion"?
NO - 80%
YES - 20%
A question for 20% people of Q1.
Q2. Do you know what the ColdFusion is specifically?
NO - 80%
YES - 20%
# Why is this? There are a couple of reasons.
# At first, there is not ColdFusion as a choice.
# ( programming languages in Japan wikipedia )
# (updated 01/06/2009 : I've added "ColdFusion" and "CFScript"!)
# ( List of computer programming topics in US wikipedia )
# there is few Japanese resources for ColdFusion.
# search engines in Japan show Japanese pages by priority.
# (also many people prefer to use Yahoo! Japan than Google.)
A question for 20% people of Q2.
Q3. Do you use ColdFusion in work?
NO - 80%
YES - 20%
Ok now, the population of software engineer in Japan is more than 500,000. The web engineer supposes 20% of it. So it is 100,000.
Q1. Have you ever heard the word of "ColdFusion"?
YES. 100,000 * 0.2 = 20,000 people
Q2. Do you know what the ColdFusion is specifically?
YES. 20,000 * 0.2 = 4,000 people
Q3. Do you use ColdFusion in work?
YES. 4,000 * 0.2 = 800 people
I do not think that this is an extreme example. Only 800 developers support ColdFusion market in Japan.
What should Adobe do for expanding ColdFusion developers?
Should Adobe recommend ColdFusion to other people?
What do you think how many people try ColdFusion?
They are extremely busy for their own tasks which is related not with ColdFusion but with other programming language.
Ok, there is another simulation.
People who pay attention to the talk of Adobe could be ...
80,000 * 0.2 = 16,000
People who get interest in ColdFusion among those people could be ...
16,000 * 0.2 = 3,200
People who try ColdFusion among those people could be ...
3,200 * 0.2 = 640
People who recommend ColdFusion to their boss could be ...
640 * 0.2 = 128
( This is a very good case. Because many of the Japanese of software development companies are passiveness. )
People(bosses) who adopt the suggestion could be ...
128 * 0.2 = 25
People who try to persuade their customer could be ...
25 * 0.2 = 5
( This is a good case. Because there are not so many development companies that persuade the customer in Japan. )
People(customers) who adopt the suggestion could be ...
5 * 0.2 = 1
This means we might get 1 project by recommanding CF to 16,000 people. But also it might get nothing.
Anyway I suggest three ideas.
- 1. approaching educational insutitute.
- Pros
making future CF developers - Cons
does not contribute to sales
because of free ColdFusion license
- Problem which should be solved
there are few jobs related with ColdFusion
- Pros
- 2. approaching hosting service providers
- Pros
easy to launch ColdFusion application - Cons
( nothing special ) - Problem which should be solved
there might be no consaltant for it in Japan
there might be no support system for it in Adobe Japan
- Pros
- 3. launching a business consortium of ColdFusion
which is supported by Adobe Japan
- Pros
easy to access those companies
improvement of acknowledgment level of ColdFusion
it gives a sense of security for the customer. - Cons
it needs human resources of Adobe Japan - Problem which should be solved
determining a secretary company
- Pros
If Adobe needs any help for ColdFusion/Flex/AIR,
I'll help Adobe :)
A happy new year
Shigeru Nakagaki :D
Comments (5)
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Making technical documents and samples of Flex3/AIR for you.
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Consulting for the company which wants to build Flex2/AIR application.
Are you going to MAX Japan?
=Ryan
ryan@adobe.com
=Ryan
ryan@adobe.com
I think it will be tough for CF here. I have used CF since 1996, and love it to bits, although I haven't done serious development for a few years.
However, while I am creating site prototypes with CF, I think I would grit my teeth and choose PHP if I had funding to make a production site. This is simply because of the lack of local community for CF. Ever since Sirius was the local distributor for Allaire, I got the impression that they wanted to focus on "Enterprise" customers, and weren't interested (or maybe weren't resourced) enough to promote grass-roots activities. Now as a result - like you suggest - there are very few developers, and no CF jobs being advertised.
Perhaps there is potential to leverage Air and Flex - as these are up and coming - to could give new RIA developers exposure to CF.
> What are the higher education institutions
> you'd suggest Adobe focuses on first?
It's definitely universities on first. And the second is vocational schools.
> Are you going to MAX Japan?
might be... because I might talk something at Japan CFUG session.
Also I've added "ColdFusion" to the list on Wikipedia Japan.
( Actually "ColdFusion" page already exists. )
> I got the impression that they wanted to focus on "Enterprise" customers
Exactly! You're completely right. And they miss-understood the concept of ColdFusion. Then they failed some big enterprise projects.
The reason for today's situation is because they had made a huge mistake in the directionality of marketing.
# However, it's fact too that one of the reasons is that initial ColdFusion was very unstable.