Ever since BlueDragon was first released almost five years ago, some people have asked, "When is BlueDragon going to catch up to CFMX?", or made statements like, "BlueDragon will always be playing catch-up to CFMX." To a certain extent--prior to BlueDragon 7.0--there was some validity to these questions and statements. While BlueDragon has always had unique features and advantages that were not (and in some cases still are not) available in CFMX, prior to BlueDragon 7.0 there were important features of CFMX that were not available in BlueDragon.

Let me put this in a slightly different way. Prior to BlueDragon 7.0, in order to take advantage of the unique features of BlueDragon--such as standard J2EE WAR/EAR deployment, or ASP.NET integration, or improved performance and reliability--our customers had to give up some major features of CFMX. Sometimes this was an easy decision, sometimes it was harder, and sometimes people made the decision not to use BlueDragon because one feature or another was simply too important for them to do without. The key point is that there was always a trade-off that had to be weighed: were the unique features and advantages of BlueDragon important enough to out-weigh the CFMX features that were being given up?

With the release of BlueDragon 7.0, this has all changed. There are no major features of CFMX 7.0.2 that aren't available in BlueDragon 7.0. Yes, there are still features of CFMX that BlueDragon doesn't support; the main ones are: Event Gateways, Reporting Services, and Flex/Flash integration. Of these, Flex/Flash integration is the only one might seriously hinder someone from choosing BlueDragon over CFMX (and we're developing a response to this, but you're going to have to wait for my CFUNITED-07 keynote to hear more about it).

My main point is this: with the release of BlueDragon 7.0, there are no longer any major features missing in BlueDragon that would prevent most people from making the switch in order to take advantage of the unique features of BlueDragon.

In addition--and this is were the "surpassed" part comes in--there are many features available in BlueDragon 7.0 that aren't in CFMX 7.0.2:

• ASP.NET integration
• multi-threaded programming (CFTHREAD)
• image processing (CFIMAGE)
• support for nulls
• CFC interfaces and abstract CFCs
• ability to duplicate CFCs
• ability to serialize CFCs into the J2EE session scope
• new CFQUERY attributes: CACHEDUNTILCHANGE and BACKGROUND
• Application.cfc onClientStart() and onMissingTemplate() handlers
• CFMAPPING tag
• web site spidering (CFINDEX/CFSEARCH)
• use of CFQUERYPARAM with cached queries
• CFIMAP tag
• CFZIP tag

So what about Scorpio (CFMX 8)? Let's take a look at what's been announced publicly so far:

Image processing (CFIMAGE and related functions). The CFIMAGE tag was introduced in BlueDragon 3.0 in 2002--almost five years ago. Yes, CFMX 8 adds enhancements to BlueDragon's original implementation--as you'd expect--but, from what we've seen so far it shouldn't be difficult to roll these enhancements into a BlueDragon update within a fairly short timeframe. The key decision is going to be whether to wait and include these in BlueDragon 8.0, or release them earlier in a 7.1 update.

.NET integration. The .NET-based version of BlueDragon was released two years ago in March 2005. While adding support for CFOBJECT TYPE=".NET" appears to be a direct response to BlueDragon.NET, the CFMX 8 implementation falls short because it's not truly integrated with .NET. Instead, it apparently relies on Java-to-.NET bridge technology licensed from a third-party (I'm making this assumption based on public statements that CFMX 8 is still implemented in Java--unlike BlueDragon.NET, which is implemented purely in .NET--and the fact that Adobe is listed as an ISV customer on the JNBridge web site). This is essentially the same approach taken by CFMX for COM integration.

Multi-threaded programming (CFTHREAD). This feature was added to CFMX 8 as a direct result of New Atlanta's keynote at CFUNITED last year, where CFTHREAD was announced and demonstrated as part of BlueDragon 7.0.

It would appear that with BlueDragon 7.0 the tables have turned somewhat. The major "new" features of CFMX 8, certainly the first ones announced by Adobe--CFIMAGE, .NET integration, CFTHREAD--are playing catch-up to BlueDragon. Has BlueDragon 7.0 caught and surpassed CFMX? I think the evidence is clear that it has.

One final point. With the release of BlueDragon 7.0, New Atlanta has announced a competitive upgrade program for customers moving from CFMX. This is the first time we've ever done this, and competitive upgrade pricing will only be available for a limited time, so act soon.