Macromedia Studio 8 Launch

I was priveleged to attend the launch of Macromedia Studio 8. I say so not because I received a special invite from Macromedia but my plans almost got scuttled with Jayant announcing the monthly marketing meet today. Thankfully Giri understood the importance of attending the seminar and I was relieved for half a day.

Aadesh and I usually go along for any seminars or workshops and it was no different today :-) J W Marriott Hotel is the preferred location for Macromedia seminars maybe since the speakers find it easier to travel to the airport and stay there as well. The seminars are an occasion for guys like us to know more about the software and also network with fellow designers.

With this release, I must say that Flash has come back to the designers and that Macromedia has been listening to the feedback of the consumers. This new version of Flash, touted to be the biggest ever in its history, has some new features – A New Video Codec, Great Font Display, Enhancements for Graphic Display, Overall Improved Performance & more. Some of the Photoshop features have now come into Flash such as Blending modes and Effects like Drops shadow, bevels, etc. Another important feature is the Script Assist in the actions frame panel which makes the job of non-developers a lot easier by filling up the blanks. Flash Studio 8 also comes along with an improved type rendering engine which makes anti-aliasing fonts look better on screen. This was the first seminar that I attended after the Adobe acquisition of Macromedia and probably the last that it will ever host as a company. References to Adobe softwares were very frequent and did not seem illogical this time.

The speakers were, surprisingly, not Indian but had specially flown in from California for this launch. Jim Guerard (VP, Product Management & Marketing) set the tone for the launch by introducing the Studio and Macromedia’s strategies. Then came Mike Downey (Product Manager for Flash) who was very profound about Flash 8 and brilliantly explained some of the key features of the new software. He was hilarious at times and ensured that the crowd didn’t go to sleep. Jennifer Taylor (Product Manager for Dreamweaver) introduced Dreamweaver 8 with it’s high end capabilities for handling CSS and XSLT. The brand term ‘MX’ has been silently removed from the products and I kept wondering why. Amongst the several features introduced in Dreamweaver Studio 8 is the zoom and the guidelines.

Apart from the usual chai-paani that goes along with seminars, I caught up with some old friends like Arckid (Ashvin Savani) who is a Team Macromedia member and my old friend. He hails from Surat and runs a company by the name of Avinashi Systems. I also met Karl Gomes who’s the Creative Head at TribalDDB India. I last met him at a Ryze meet in October 2003 :-) Most importantly, I met Maya who used to be my classmate at the art school and we caught up with some past memories. It’s quite natural to happen I guess. The other notable sightings were Union Members Kelpstie (Nash), Trance_Addict (Abhishek), Hemant and Sailor Of the Nets (Amol). Unfortunately I couldn’t say goodbye to some of them while leaving the hotel lobby.

And BTW, there were 2 lucky girls who won the Studio 8 in a lucky draw and both will get the software as and when it is launched.

Know More about Macromedia Studio 8
Studio 8 Product Features