Without good marketing, a product can die. There are some out there who say that Adobe ColdFusion is dying. However, ColdFusion experts and developers agree that it is very much alive. And technically it is excellent. Perhaps the problem is not CF itself, but with its marketing.

So what steps can we take as CFers to make sure ColdFusion doesn’t fade away?

How can we promote CFML?

These are some tricky questions as there is no clear-cut answer. Both producers and consumers must do their part to ensure the survival of CF and help it grow. Let’s take a look at how we can transform our quiet platform into a roaring giant through better marketing.

Improve PR

“ColdFusion from a technical point of view is not dying. What I believe is and has always been an issue in my opinion with CF is PR. Adobe has never really marketed ColdFusion to the masses and they’ve always been fortune 500, big corporation type clients they’re going after, which doesn’t get into schools and the mainstream. And Lucee has done a lot and for them to make it available to people who don’t have big corporate checkbooks. But marketing has always been a weak point. I believe it needs more in the marketing department because the language is stable. It doesn’t have any tech issues. It’s got a good support base it just needs visibility.”- Steven Neiland, Senior web developer at SiteVision Inc

From CF Alive episode, “031 Going Modular With Fw/1 Subsystems 2.0, with Steven Neiland“

Unfortunately, we cannot say the same about the good folks at Adobe and Lucee. Apart from working CFML developers, very few know the name ColdFusion. Whereas, Java and C++ have become household names in tech circles. How can we do the same for ColdFusion? To do this, we must first address how CF’s PR could be way better.

ColdFusion is far from dead. One proof of this is the amazing advancements made in CF 2018. Asynchronous programming, auto security lockdowns, and multi-latency support are just some of the new updates. But who is going to hear about it? The CF community needs to step up its game when it comes to getting the word out to the masses.

Adobe focuses its marketing to existing customers. It relies on word-of-mouth marketing more than wider outreach campaigns.  The CF team also needs to reach out to their desired clientele. Adobe stays in its safe zone of Fortune 500 companies and government. Why aren’t they reaching out to the developer masses? Why are they content to stay in this shell? New recruits keep a software army going. Notice how many ColdFusion experts are currently out there. The numbers are fewer than they could be. Also many existing CFers seem kind of ashamed about what they do, as I discussed in detail in the Introduction chapter.

Adobe ColdFusion isn’t without its competitors in the CFML arena. The frontrunner is  Lucee, an open source CFML. The Lucee Organization is currently not as prominent as Adobe in the public eye but rising. So why is it that Lucee is now mentioned in every conversation about CFML? First, Lucee as an organization is reaching out to the masses of developers. Lucee offers what Adobe does not – a free open source product.

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