CFDJ: Allaire has recently been in the acquisition and partnership mode. Can you give us a brief history of the events over the last couple of years and the rationale behind these decisions?

Allaire: One of the primary reasons for going public over a year ago was to create a base of assets that could be leveraged into mergers and acquisitions. We saw a number of areas for expansion for our platform, all of which underlined a long-term strategy for becoming one of the leading Internet business platforms. In 1999 we undertook three acquisitions. The first, BrightTiger Technologies, makers of advanced scalability and Web systems management technology, underpinned our efforts to bolster our Enterprise-level application server offering. The last two, LiveSoftware and Valto Systems, helped to accelerate Allaire's entry into the Java server marketspace, and have formed the foundation for our next-generation products. As you know, both LiveSoftware and Valto were 100% focused on pure, standards-based Java architectures, including JSP, Servlets, EJB, JTA and JMS. Unlike a lot of other players in the Java server field who were carrying forward their own proprietary Java offerings, we saw that the end of 1999 was the time for a pure-play, standards offering.

CFDJ: You also recently acquired a commerce software vendor, OpenSesame, makers of a profiling and personalization solution. Most application server vendors are making similar moves. Cases in point: Commerce Server (Sun-AOL's iPlanet product suite) and WebLogic's Commerce Xpert. How do you plan to compete with such vendors?

Allaire: The OpenSesame acquisition expands on the Allaire Spectra foundation, which is our packaged-applications product line. Spectra 1.0 has been available since December and is having fantastic success out of the gate as a solution for content and commerce sites. As articulated in our roadmap, this product line is expanding with additional application modules focused on the needs of running an Internet business.

CFDJ: How do these developments affect ColdFusion developers? Do they now have to learn Java to fully leverage the Allaire product suite?

Allaire: CF developers definitely won't have to learn Java, though the CFML runtime will be built on top of a Java foundation. There will be a lot of benefits that flow out of that, including that the Allaire server platform will be able to handle pretty much every type of project in any company. For CF developers you'll see us enhancing CFML with more object-based constructs, and the CF server itself will include more advanced scalability and reliability features based on the transaction and messaging server infrastructure in our core Java platform.

CFDJ: It seems to me that this rapid evolution has confused the marketplace. Is there a uniform message Allaire wants to send out to the Web community?

Allaire: A lot has happened with Allaire in the last year. We've evolved from being a leading provider of tools and application servers to supplying a comprehensive Internet software platform covering core server infrastructure, packaged applications as well as development and productivity tools. If there's a uniform message for the Web community, it's that Allaire intends to be a dominant provider of Internet software platforms, enabling any organization to successfully build their business on the Web. We intend to provide top-to-bottom platform infrastructure as well as a wide range of horizontal packaged applications necessary to running an Internet business.

CFDJ: Going back to my first question, how does this message map to the products you are offering?

Allaire: In our recently released Allaire Technology Roadmap, we discuss the customer requirements for e-business software infrastructure and then map this to our existing products and platform, as well as provide a roadmap for future Allaire offerings. Today we're providing a very robust set of application server products, covering both front-tier and back-end application server requirements. This goes from free products for small dynamic sites up through enterprise offerings, including distributed transaction and message queuing infrastructure. On the packaged applications front we released Allaire Spectra 1.0 in December, providing a comprehensive suite of modules for content management, e-commerce and customer relationship management on the Web. We also announced the acquisition of OpenSesame, an early pioneer and leader in the customer profiling, analysis and personalization space.

CFDJ: Allaire started out with site-building software that has now evolved into an industry-strength application server. How would you define an application server in today's market?

Allaire: Again, we discuss this in great detail in our Technology Roadmap. It's our belief that the application server portion of e-business software infrastructure is rapidly becoming something of an "operating platform" for all Web applications, replacing the role that was once provided by classic middleware and network operating systems. Functionally, application servers really provide four key areas of functionality: Core Services, such as clustering, security, session management and logging; Integration Services, such as connectivity to Internet protocols, ERP systems, database systems, directories and so on; Web Application Logic services, providing a dynamic page environment that's used for scripting and is generally the basis for about 80% of applications built; and finally Business Logic services, providing a container or hosting environment for complex business logic, executing in a distributed, transactable fashion. This will certainly be the minimum requirements for any offering into 2000 and 2001.

CFDJ: Nowadays, in order to get wide acceptance in the computer industry, companies try to adhere to technology standards. Does Allaire plan to standardize any of its technologies so as to get a larger audience?

Allaire: Broad adoption of any platform requires a unique combination of proprietary innovation and open standards. This has certainly been the case in the Internet world. For Allaire, this means building and supplying infrastructure based on Internet and industry standards, innovating beyond standards in territories that aren't developed and in turn collaborating to ensure that that innovation eventually contributes to open standards efforts. Our efforts in the Servlet and JSP community are indicative. The JRun team has consistently extended what's possible with server-side Java and have been aggressive to contribute that work to the Sun Community Process. Likewise, with XML protocols Allaire is committed to a similar effort.

CFDJ: How about ColdFusion? Do you plan to submit CFML to a committee for a standards process?

Allaire: We don't plan on submitting CFML proper to a standards process. However, as will be evident in the marketplace in 2000, we're very actively involved in defining the Tag Extensibility mechanism in the JavaServer Pages standard and you'll start to see some de facto standardization for the ColdFusion language model through this kind of process. Over time, CFML will become a suite of language modules built on top of a standards-based architecture.

CFDJ: What's your roadmap for the coming year regarding ColdFusion?

Allaire: We've got a ton of things in the works with ColdFusion and our server platform in general. The biggest move will be the shift of CF to be built on the J2EE platform, which will spawn all kinds of benefits for developers. During the coming year or so, you'll also see some of the programming framework aspects of Allaire Spectra, such as the ContentObject API and the ContentObject Database, become generally and freely available to ColdFusion developers. And then there's the obvious stuff, the incremental enhancements to core tags and server features.

CFDJ: Does Allaire plan to get into application design or do you plan to always be application enablers?

Allaire: I assume by this you mean actually getting into the application development business through a consulting organization. This isn't a big focus for the company, though we're expanding our services offerings to better ensure the success of our enterprise customers.

CFDJ: How does your entry into the Java middle tier affect the company's direction vis-ˆ-vis ColdFusion?

Allaire: The easiest way to think about this is that Allaire is broadening its role in the Internet software platform market to cover all of the tiers of technology necessary for building an Internet business. Historically, Allaire hadn't supplied core object middleware, such as transaction and messaging infrastructure, and it became very clear that for Allaire to become a true platform company, these were aspects of the broader solution. For our ColdFusion customers, in essence, this means that the CF server will become even more strategic to their overall Internet infrastructure. At the same time, of course, we're deeply committed to supplying server software for every tier of the market, ranging from free, low-end servers like ColdFusion Express up to the highest-end servers necessary for running a company's Internet back office.

CFDJ: Don't Sun's technologies for the client, such as JSP and Servlets, overlap with your own, such as CFML? After all, both are mechanisms for producing dynamic HTML.

Allaire: CFML, JSP and ASP all provide mechanisms for delivering dynamic pages to browsers. I wouldn't put Servlets proper in this category, as they're really a Java-focused alternative to CGI or NSAPI/ISAPI and really don't provide a scripting and page template environment that's necessary for Web applications.

Currently, CFML provides the highest level of abstraction and therefore the highest degree of productivity of developing interactive applications. Both JSP and ASP are still at the object-scripting level and don't yet provide the same kind of productivity advantage, though they're ages ahead of writing server-side interactivity logic using Java or C. As you may be aware, Allaire has been one of the most active proponents of the standardization of tag-based scripting within JSP, contributing to the Taglib architecture and working actively on reference implementations as well as next-generation architectures. As we move ColdFusion to a J2EE foundation, you'll also see us move CFML to sit as an abstraction on top of JSP and Servlets.

CFDJ: Your recent acquisition of Valto Systems clearly broadcasts the message that you want to compete with the big boys of Java enterprise computing, such as BEA Systems, Sun and IBM. How do you plan to gain entry into an already defined market?

Allaire: We expect to become a major supplier in the enterprise tier of the Java application server market and I think you'll see a very different approach from Allaire in pursuing that space. First, our entire offering is based 100% on Java and 100% on J2EE implemented services. Unlike many of our competitors who have existing C++, Java and CORBA-based systems that are migrating to J2EE, everything we've done has been built from the ground up on Java2. This means that we've got an exceptionally lightweight, clean-room implementation that comes in at around a 1MB memory footprint. We're going to leverage that into ISV and OEM customers, who are increasingly looking for embedded J2EE services. We're also going to continue the Allaire tradition of pricing and packaging our platforms for mass adoption - so I think that, from a developer's perspective, the Allaire J2EE offering will be the most competitive in the marketplace in terms of price/performance.

CFDJ: I've heard from several folks that the ColdFusion Application Server can't handle high-volume transactions. Is this true? If so, how are you addressing the issue in your migration to the Java middle tier?

Allaire: In early 1998 that was certainly true. In late 1998 and throughout 1999 we delivered ColdFusion Enterprise, our first enterprise-level application server offering. This included all of the components you would expect at this tier, including advanced scalability and clustering services, native database connectivity, CORBA and Java support, and a lot of server tuning, caching and configuration options. With this offering we were able to support dozens of large dot-com customers handling millions or tens of millions per day, and had a couple of the top 10 holiday e-commerce sites deployed entirely on our platform. In addition, our move into the transaction middleware space will ensure failsafe deployment and reliability for customers implementing large-scale transactional systems.

CFDJ: Would you say that ColdFusion is a direct competitor to JSPs? Is there room for both? If so, could you give me examples of the kinds of applications that could leverage both these technologies?

Allaire: Again, today you really would choose one or the other for the Web application logic layer. Going forward, with CFML built on a Java foundation, it will be incorporated into the same runtime environment as JSP. What it will really come down to for a developer is what level of abstraction they want or need to work at. CFML is simply the fastest way to develop dynamic Web applications, and we will carry this tradition forward into the standards-based community.

CFDJ: Is it fair to say that ColdFusion can provide an abstraction layer on top of JSPs, ASPs, JavaScript and other scripting environments? Can ColdFusion help developers stay agnostic about scripting environments?

Allaire: ColdFusion - or CFML, more specifically - provides the highest abstraction layer on top of any server-side or client-side language. In particular, CFML Custom Tags enable a developer to encapsulate pretty much any client or server-side logic in a straightforward, declarative component. As we broaden our server platform to include JSP, JavaScript and so on, you'll see that Allaire is deeply committed to providing a multilanguage platform, not just CFML.

CFDJ: How would a company providing e-commerce solutions partition their proj-ect so that they can leverage your different products? Would they be forced to use all of your products?

Allaire: There is obviously a broad range of configurations and uses of our platform, ranging from using ColdFusion Express for a small-scale departmental intranet up to using all of our server products and our applications to implement a comprehensive, enterprise-wide e-business initiative. One approach we're starting to see goes something like this: the front-end Web site, including content management, user interactivity, shopping cart functions and so on, all based on ColdFusion and Spectra, with back-end components (with greater degrees of complexity) based on server-side Java, using either Servlets or EJBs running in JRun.

CFDJ: You made some really big announcements with Spectra. How's the evolution of that product coming along?

Allaire: It's going fantastic. Relative to our competitive peer group (e.g., BroadVision, Vignette, ATG and Open Market), we're overnight becoming a major player in the packaged applications marketplace. We built a highly competitive product with a very broad feature set and leveraged the heck out of the technology foundation already established with ColdFusion. As a 1.0 release, we're very pleased with the success that the product is seeing, and are well on our way to incremental releases as well as a major point release later this year.

CFDJ: Do you have any examples of real-world implementations using Spectra?

Allaire: Yeah, definitely. We're just starting to see the first wave of sites come online. A number of these are vertical portals, such as Vetcentric.com, Planetmedica.co.uk, OperationBass.com, NetRadio.com, among others. We've signed up over 300 major customers and we'll be seeing some major e-commerce sites and enterprise portals come live over the summer.

CFDJ: Will all ColdFusion developers have to gain an understanding of Spectra and your other commerce products?

Allaire: No, definitely not. A similar parallel can be found with Microsoft or Oracle. For example, thousands of customers use the Oracle database server but never purchase or implement Oracle's applications. Likewise, millions of customers use Windows but many don't use Microsoft Office. Over time, we expect to see more and more customers purchasing application modules from Allaire that run on our platform. Certainly, with a customer standardizing on the Allaire Business Platform, they'll most likely be using all of our software products.

CFDJ: How can our readers start playing around with some of your new products?

Allaire: Everything is downloadable from our Web site. Allaire Spectra, in fact, is included for free with ColdFusion Studio under a developer's license that never times out. JRun 3.0 may be out by the time this article runs but customers can get to the beta at beta.allaire.com/jrun30.

CFDJ: When do you think ColdFusion developers (and not Java developers) switch to CF 4.5? What are the advantages of doing so?

Allaire: There are gobs of advantages to moving to CF 4.5, the most obvious of which is that CF 4.5.1 is our first release on Linux. We rewrote a lot of our integration components for protocols such as SMTP, POP and HTTP, providing a lot of incremental enhancements customers wanted for a long time. There are dozens of new functions and a wide range of scalability-related features, including full-blown service-level failover and integration with local-director. We added support for BLOBs and binary data in WDDX and also introduced a huge range of Java integration and extensibility options.

CFDJ: Don't you think that with the new directives that Allaire has undertaken, the name of this magazine should be changed to something like Allaire Developer's Journal? After all, you don't do just ColdFusion anymore!

Allaire: I haven't thought about this too much. We definitely want to stay focused on ColdFusion as a developer technology and platform, in addition to our other products and technology. Perhaps we could create an Allaire Systems Journal focused on our overall platform, but you'd still see journals focused on specific tools and technology, just as there are focused journals for Visual Basic and so on. Most importantly, what do the readers and customers think?