I went to see Branden Hall speak to our local Macromedia User’s Group last night. He talked about consuming Web Services with Flash, which is quite easy to set up, and also about the new Flash Communications Server, with which it is surprisingly easy to build applications. I really like the direction that Macromedia has taken with their Flash product line, but I sometimes feel like developers in the Flash community and Macromedia people, don’t get what they have with Cold Fusion. This is somewhat frustrating to me. One example of this is their plan to phase out the Cold Fusion specific developer tools in favor of Dreamweaver. I’m not saying that Dreamweaver is a bad tool, but a one size fits all approach to development tools rarely works, especially when you have an audience of developers with skill sets and needs as diverse as those that the Macromedia customer base now includes. I think all of this points to a cultural split inside of Macromedia that somewhat mirrors the two companies prior to the Allaire-Macromedia merger. I thought this after talking to some Macromedia folks at SXSW this year, and as time goes on, I think this more and more. Well, that’s just my observation for now.