I am going to go ahead and contend that although a good number of ColdFusion developers can grasp and understand Flex very well, there are also a good number of ColdFusion developers who have no business going anywhere near Flex. Why do I say this? I am a big fan of Flex. I use it daily to create, what I think are, some kick-ass applications. It is a powerful tool that really changes the game on the web and the desktop. That being said, it is not a tool that every ColdFusion developer can grasp.

If you read CF-related blogs, you've undoubtedly stumbled upon discussions of seemingly arcane subjects like continuations or closures or first-class objects or absence of side effects. It's likely bloggers have tracked down the source - some would say fount - of such concepts and you'll find them waxing eloquent. As they should.

The wait is coming to an end. We are working feverishly to get the open source version of BlueDragon into the wild on the 3rd of May 2008 at cf.Objective(), when Vince presents his BOF. Vince will illustrate the first public open source version of BlueDragon. This will including the building of it, the deployment and other items of interest. If you want to be among the first to witness this, then get over there.

New Atlanta will be creating and distributing a free open-source Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) version of BlueDragon, its ColdFusion-compatible web application server. It will be released under the popular GPL license, mirroring the licensing path chosen by MySQL and Java. BlueDragon has been around for nearly a decade now.

Bolling Technology has announced that the Cordish Company is the first major client for its new online task management software product, Task Portfolio. Invented by owner and Baltimore native Raynard T. Bolling, Task Portfolio is an enterprise level, web-based task management tool that gives managers and employees the ability to efficiently assign and track tasks throughout their organizations. Task Portfolio can be used to manage various tasks in any company or industry.

Web application developers and designers often give up on building rich, interactive user interfaces because they lack the JavaScript skills to make it happen. AJAX development power tools--including Dreamweaver, Spry and off-the-shelf AJAX components--make it easy to build rich user interfaces in AJAX with no JavaScript coding. Andre Charland will demonstrate how to install, set up and configure extensions to Dreamweaver, and will use them to build simple, rich interface AJAX apps. After this session, even beginner developers will be able to add AJAX interactions to web applications. This session is a must for ambitious, novice and intermediate designers anxious to use AJAX in their applications.

Microsoft disclosed late Thursday that Jeff Raikes, the head of its Office operation, second only to Windows in bringing in revenue, was retiring and will be replaced by Stephen Elop, 44, Jupiter Networks' short-term COO. Before Jupiter, Elop was president of worldwide field operations at Adobe by virtue of Adobe's 2005 acquisition of Macromedia, where he was president and CEO. Elop also has experience as a chief information officer. The plan is for Raikes, 49, to hang around until September as a backstop as a member of the senior leadership team for purposes of transition.

PaperThin, Inc. announced that four customers have recently gone live on CommonSpot Version 5.0, including: LeSea Broadcasting, Ping Identity, Tulane University, and Tuthill Corporation. In addition, 30 customers are currently implementing the new solution which is being widely embraced for its inherent ease-of-use and improved flexibility.

'AIR Beta 3 is an exciting release that takes us one step closer to AIR 1.0,' writes Platform Evangelist Kevin Hoyt in a recent commentary on eight changes from AIR Beta 2. 'Unlike the myriad of changes introduced in the move from AIR Beta 1 to AIR Beta 2,' Hoyt added, 'the changes in AIR Beta 3 are far more subtle.' This stability,e ne noted, indicates the growing maturity of the product.

Its 47-page suit filed in district court in New York the other day says that since IBM's consent decree with the United States government was phased out in 2001 IBM has been systemically squeezing out any competition to its mainframe monopoly and that it has reneged on its undertaking to the government to keep its mainframe operating system available on RAND licensing terms after the decree expired.