Web and Internet Applications: Macromedia Applies Itself Again
In the overall category, the company pulled an impressive score of 75,a full five points ahead
of the No. 2 vendor, IBM, and 13 points ahead of the last-place contender, BEA Systems, in a field of five competitors. (For more on Macromedia, see "Flash Point," page 38.)
This is the third consecutive win in the category for Macromedia. Last year, in the comparable ARC category, Internet application server software, the company either finished first or tied for first in nine out of 11 criteria.
Remarkably, Macromedia, per se, was not a player in this category two years ago. Allaire, which Macromedia acquired in January 2001 and from which it obtained ColdFusion, was the big man on campus at that time, tying for first place with IBM.
One of the many areas in which the company excelled was that of revenue profit potential. That may be because Macromedia products often carry price tags much lower than their competitors.
"We've even heard partners and customers say our stuff is too cheap and that people think it's a reflection of low-quality," Dominic Gallello, executive vice president of Macromedia says. VARs surveyed, in fact, rave about quality: Macromedia beat the competition hands-down in this criteria.
As much as VARs seemed to love Macromedia this year, they appeared disdainful of BEA. The vendor, which produces the WebLogic platform, took last place in product innovation, fourth place in partnership and tied for third place in support subcategories. BEA managed to eke out a single first-place criteria win for quality of tech support. It's likely the company is betting the introduction of 30 integration adapters in late August will sway some VARs to its camp.
Customers now have access to a total of 150 adapters for WebLogic. BEA's adapters are based on the J2EE Connector Architecture, which means the cost and complexity associated with adapters has been lowered, allowing VARs to show greater ROI. If solution providers agree, BEA should expect to receive higher reviews next year.
For IBM, it was a repeat trip to second place. This year, WebSphere came in second place in the product innovation and support subcategories. In the partnership category, IBM earned mixed results within the various criteria, tying for first with Macromedia for its solution-provider program, yet finishing last in the ease-of-doing-business criteria. IBM came in last place in the partnership subcategory in 2001; its second-place finish this year was a great improvement. A strong finish for its e-business portal and a better-than-average score in solution-provider program helped Big Blue earn that second place. Solution providers should note the company has recently rolled out new features that will more tightly integrate its WebSphere Portal Web content publishing with IBM Content Manager,moves that could improve IBM's performance next year.
Oracle and Sun One, formerly iPlanet, came in with mediocre scores at best, with Oracle coming in squarely in the middle of the pack and Sun One following. Despite Oracle's claim that 9iAS is faster than products from IBM, it just couldn't beat Big Blue.
Oracle tied with IBM for second place in the partnership subcategory, which ranked highest in importance by VARs in this category. It placed a solid second for its service/sales partnering, solution-provider program and ease of doing business. It tied for second in communication (with IBM) and channel conflict (with BEA). Still, Oracle managed a second-place tie with IBM in partnership, better than BEA and Sun One, which finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
Finally, Sun One squeaked by in fourth place, beating BEA by two points. Sun One earned no first-place honors and finished in second place only twice,in the richness-of-features criteria (tying with IBM) and in quality of tech support (tying with Macro-media). Its lowest score was 56, which it received in the criteria of presales support (criterion average was 61) and for channel conflict (average was 62). Sun One placed second in a four-way tie in he Internet application server software category among the contenders in 2001. Time will tell if we'll see it in 2003.
