I'm calling it: CF9 and Bolt to be released together, and by…

If you listen closely to CFConversations Episode 33, you'll hear Terry Ryan and Adam Lehman explain why Adobe's official product names and release dates are kept secret for so long — hence the use of code names like Scorpio, Centaur, Bolt, Catalyst, etc.

"Basically, if we say the name of the product it has to go on our reports, and because we're not selling it yet you get zero's on the report and so that causes all sorts of problems. There are very legal reasons for doing it…" — Terry

"Then there's copyright and trademarks. If we were to (hypothetically!) come out a year ago and say, "it's called ColdFusion 9", but then took more than a year to release it someone could actually steal that trademark. Traditionally, when we go to public beta is when the official names come out." — Adam

That said, Adobe has been publicly announcing (CF, Bolt) that the name of the next version of ColdFusion is (big surprise) ColdFusion 9, and the name for the IDE (that we currently refer to as Bolt) is ColdFusion Builder. I guess we can expect an announcement for public beta any time now, right?

When you put two and two together, you can infer that they will be released more or less hand in hand. It wouldn't make much sense for them to be released a week or two apart, splitting the hype; it makes much more sense to combine them and have one big party. That isn't much of a surprise. Some of the features announced for Centaur — ColdFusion 9 — pretty much require IDE integration. (And some of them don't, but are still pretty badass!)

But the big take away from these announcements is that we can expect ColdFusion 9 and ColdFusion Builder to be available for purchase no later than June of 2010. The clock is ticking.

Oh, but there's that big Adobe MAX conference in October, too. I wonder what they'll be talking about…

Posted in Adobe | ColdFusion | 8 Responses  

8 responses:

• Dan Vega Jun 18, 2009 at 9:06 AM I have the same knowledge as but here are a couple things to your points. First off It is fact that ColdFusion 9 & Bolt (Officially ColdFusion Builder) will be released some time this year. With that said it is probably not going to be anytime soon because neither product has gone into public beta yet. I think around max you are going to see a number of products released on the same day. Just my 2cents!
• Adam Jun 18, 2009 at 9:21 AM Dan, I whole-heartedly agree. I suspect they'll be released at or shortly following MAX. But the information they've given us (my quotes from the podcast) *do* give us a sort of drop-dead date. According to Adam and Terry, they pretty much have to get these two products out the door by June 2010 or risk losing their trademarks.
• Dan Vega Jun 18, 2009 at 9:24 AM Yes but they said they will be released this year (2009) so June 2010 is out of the question.
• Adam Jun 18, 2009 at 9:27 AM Right! Because software projects never get delayed! ;)
  
  Still, I agree with you, and I do recall Adobe announcing that they will be released in 2009. That doesn't mean disaster couldn't strike. All I'm saying is that Adobe has drawn a line in the sand, and that line is June 2010.
  
  The smart money is on MAX, for sure.
• Joshua Cyr Jun 18, 2009 at 10:02 AM or 9/9/09
• Adam Jun 18, 2009 at 10:32 AM Joshua, I remember thinking Scorpio would come out on 8/8/08, but they surprised me and released earlier. I don't think they'll go for a fun date just for the sake of it. If they were going to release in early September anyway, then I could see 9/9/09.
  
  I still think MAX is the smart bet.
• fgwenger Jun 18, 2009 at 5:08 PM This page ties Bolt and Centaur together and says Adobe is "targeting" 2009.
  
  http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Centaur
• Rob Jun 25, 2009 at 12:08 PM I would be willing to bet the release would be 8/10/09 - days before CFUnited.