Macromedia: Corporate-Speak is alive

Most people will have completely missed the little brush fire happening with respect to a free flash player being pulled then put back after developers kicked up a fuss.

I think it’s actually an important exercise for software companies that are even remotely thinking about building an ecosystem around their particular product or services.

First, an important note of caution: Bill Perry, the subject below may or may not actually be a Macromedia employee. I say that because I’ve found a couple of different explanations/bios. This one talks about him as a freelance guy. At the bottom of this article, Bill is referred to as an employee. So, Bill, if you aren’t an employee sorry sorry, as an independent volunteer for Team Macromedia, no abuse intended.

Let’s dive in.

The Pocket PC or Mobile Windows as it is today, has not, yet, become a massive [fill in the blank] killer or whatever. Steady growth, nice products, continuing evolution, etc. One of the things these devices can do, and do well, is play Flash stuff. 

The Flash player was ported and available for these devices pretty quickly and, for the most part, has been well supported and works.

On Oct 3rd, Macromedia decides to kill a free download for the Flash Player 6. The total post was this:

“As of this morning the Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC is no longer available for download from the Macromedia site. This page provides answers to some FAQs that you may have regarding this. For those of you who are developing Flash content for Windows Mobile devices be assured that we are still supporting the Windows Mobile platform (Pocket PC) and will provide new articles and sample files on a continuing basis.

If you have any questions about this you can send them to mobiledeveloper at macromedia.com. Feel free to also post any comments here as well.”

You can read the comments here or assume, correctly, the developer community hit the roof.

A full three days later, another posting appears with some so-called answers.  Again, a short little, well, nothing, in total:

“There's been some discussion in the community about the recent removal of the free Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC download and I wanted to provide more details as to why it was removed from the Macromedia mobile and devices developer site. You can read all about it here but to summarize the main points:

• The free Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC was created and tested on Pocket PC 2003 OS devices back in 2003. Because of changes to the operating system and hardware of new devices, Macromedia cannot guarantee that Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC will work consistently when playing Flash content.
• The Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC Distribution Kit (previously known as the Stand alone Flash Player for Pocket PC) is meant for developers to distribute their content with the Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC to end-users. Because of this ability Macromedia sells the Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC Distribution Kit for $499.
  
• Macromedia's approach since 2001 has been to work closely with OEMs and partners so that they pre-install Flash Player on their devices.

If you have any additional questions about this please send them to mobile developer at macromedia.com and someone will reply within 24 hours.”

Same thing. You can read the comments here or assume, correctly, that most developers picked up on the note that for five hundred bucks, you could solve this so-called issue about the player working ‘consistently’.  So the screaming rages on with the developers royally pissed.

Finally, on or about Oct 11th, a miracle happens. Bill Perry announces to the developer world: WE HEAR YA! WE LISTENED!. And, just like that, this as-is free thing is back along with your continuing ability to shell about 500 bucks.

Yowsa.

The whole notion of ‘we listened’ is, frankly, offensive. Nobody listened because nobody asked the developers first. We listened is corporate-speak for making a dumb mistake, looking really stupid, being called on it, and then simply claiming victory. “We listened” is a crock. 

Lesson for you: If you sign up to build an ecosystem, proactively talk to your developer base. Not all that hard.

These posts above are, at best, poor. This is about as impersonal as you can get. When Scoble is giving out his cell phone, office number, email address, places where he is having dinner, and he works for le borg, it’s hard to understand this impersonal stuff. Bill, where’s the love? Or at least your personal email address. The page where you give the non-explanation for this exercise, no email for you, Bill.

At the risk of getting slamed for showing excessive Scoble love, here’s a story. An intern from a portfolio company saw a comment I made in a blog and sent a note to Robert. He asked Robert some career advice. Within hours, Robert answered the guy. Didn’t know em. Didn’t know I knew em. Just was an email machine, zipping through 500+ emails a day.  Doc Searls, as another example, blows through 1000s of emails a day. Seth Godin has been publishing his Yahoo email since, gee, since his Yahoo days. Billionare Basketball bad boy Mark Cuban answers email from 4 accounts that I know of.  And the list goes on. 

There is no, none, zero excuse for Macromedia’s head of developer relations to not be out there with his email address.

But they do have a link for developers to send feedback and totally promise not to give you a personal reply. No, really. That’s what they say on the feedback page.

Lesson for you: Developers Developers Developers. Sorry, couldn’t resist. The real lesson is humans matter. The days of this impersonal stuff is over. Even if our friend Bill wants to hide, the easy way to do that is create bperry type email address which goes to the whole developer team while b.perry goes to him or whatever. The key, these days is to bury people in the personal touch, not go the other way around.

And it just gets worse. Why? Monopoly. When you are the only show in town, the first thing that happens is your corporate DNA becomes infested with arrogance.

Don’t touch the keyboard, I know it applies to Microsoft in a number of cases. Microsoft’s best friend, Alan Herrell (aka the Head Lemur)has a great post with links about the state of MA doing a number on the Office group. If that doesn’t give you a roadmap on what happens when you hit 90% + marketshare and what not to do, I dunno what else will.

You heard it here first. When Microsoft launches Sparkle, it will be the best thing to ever happen to Flash, Flash Developers, and customers.  I use IE but please download Firefox, it keeps the IE guys on the improvement trek.

Competition is a very important component of innovation, long live the Fox and the Penguin.

Comments

[Robert W. Anderson]

You hit the nail on the head about developer ecosystem here. Macromedia is trying to appear developer-friendly and they don't quite get it.

Microsoft (Borg or not) does seem to get it. Robert Scoble has it right: basically, he isn't afraid to engage with people. He welcomes it.

[John Dowdell]

Hi Rick, Bill Perry is indeed a staffer here at Macromedia... we first met when he was an indy developer, and he joined just about a year ago, sits two cubes away from me.

Of course, now you may wonder about me, but that's okay.... ;-)

(I come out of tech support, and have a very different experience of private email exposure than do hired-in bloggers on the conference circuit. Bill provided a job-specific alias which directly reached his mailbox.)

I can't speak freely on this issue, frankly... there are issues which certain partners you mention did not want public, and poor Bill took it on the chin for that, caught between a rock and a hard place.

... and I think, right now, that's all I can actually say. Forgive me...? ;-)

jd/mm

[John Dowdell]

... bump.... ;-)

[John Dowdell]

Hmm, not only did Rick never reply to the above, I just learned today of some ancient history, where Rick himself was accused of identity fakery in online discussions... use search term "bartko incident segal canopus" to find out more.

Rick, do you have any counter to the above literature? What's your side of the story...?

(We first "met" online when Steve Banfield was doing Microsoft multimedia evangelism on CompuServe.)

jd/adobe

[Rick Segal]

John,
Two things.

1. Didn't see there was anything to reply to. Adobe/Macromedia had already contacted me offline and that's that.

2. Old news, nothing to add.

What's with the supportinfo email address? You guys can't use/have your own?

[John Dowdell]

Hmm, that's odd, I don't see my previous reply... maybe it didn't take.

Generic address came years ago, when we public-facing tech support staff noticed many of us would get private support requests in parallel, each of us investing in private reply. That's why I keep conversation in the public realm, myself.

For the astroturfing issue, are you saying that net wisdom on "Steven Bartko" is correct, then? I wanted to hear your side of the story before believing it.

tx, jd