Wow, the Macromedia Central universe has been awfully quiet for an awfully long time. There’s no Central category on MXNA, and when I do a search there, I only see one blog entry over the last month that really has anything to do with Central. A year ago there were quite a few developers talking it up, with plans to make big money from a killer app. Now, silence.
One thing I noticed, that I’m not sure many people caught onto, was that at Flash Forward in NY this month, I heard MM representitives use the word “experimental” to describe Central at least twice. I’m sure no one ever used that word with it before.
I was never really taken with the idea of Central as it stands. I think there are some great ideas behind it, and I’m very much into putting Flash on the desktop. But I don’t think they got it right. There were some obvious issues, such as branding and licensing, which I think were well known and in the process of being addressed. But I think what it really lacks is a set of killer apps.
I didn’t see a single app released for central that I would call “killer”. But even a single one wouldn’t justify Central’s existence. It could just be done in Flash and compiled with SWF Studio or Zinc. I think one of Central’s more promising points was the inter-app communication (“blast”? correct me if I’m wrong). A few killer apps that actually talked to each other could create a synergy (sum > parts) that would potentially make Central worth installing. I know, it’s a developer oriented release, but I’m just sure why with so many enthusiastic developers working with it, nobody every produced anything really exciting with it.
While I was never much into Central, it was definitely something I kept my eye on, just in case. I can’t believe Macromedia would just trash it. In the 10-page Flash Platform paper, there is a single paragraph about Central, describing it as a “next generation solution”. My guess (hope) is that they’ve compiled the results of the Central experiment, and gone back to the drawing board to make something that really will take off.