This may be a bit late of a news, but I strongly felt the urge to blog it and express my opinion about this. I have been hearing about this product named Namo FlashCreator from some people, claiming that it’s a product competing with Macromedia Flash. I just got curious and went ahead and downloaded the trail version of it and installed it. I was stunned to see that the interface of Macromedia Flash was shamelessly copied. It looks alike, except for some very minor changes in timeline and stuff. The most annoying point is that these people are challenging Macromedia Flash, how funny. The biggest advantage as people claim is that it is priced at $50.
I saw John Dowdell blogging about this some time back, he was so generous towards them and even projected that as a positive growth towards accelerating development for mobile devices using Flash. In my personal opinion Namo doesn't even have 10% of features which Macromedia Flash has. It's a shame on Namo to give such a foolish press release. One thing I am wondering is how come Macromedia have not yet sued them for copying Macromedia Flash's interface.
Comments
You aren't kidding - they didn't even try to make it look any different. I find it odd that while 'ActionScript' and 'SWF' are mentioned, I was unable to find any reference to 'Macromedia'*. Given that 'namo' has an office in San Jose, maybe they have an unspoken business relationship with Macromedia - selling a lesser version of Flash and possibly other products for less money.
* found one reference in the support FAQs, but no '®'
But it's nice tool and in $50 gives a lot...You are right that it doesn't stand anywhere when compared to Flash.
But most of people who can't buy flash, specially students, would be using it to create flash apps...That's interesting part....
Flash is much more powerful indeed....
-abdul
Grass always grows by the tree.. it's never gonna harm the tree and the tree knows it!
Only here the grass seems to have shamelessly copied the Flash interface. I agree, copycats piss me off. Period!
But then again, i haven't downloaded and checked this new software out or anything, so i wanted to ask you whether they did boast of a new interface atall or not. Because if they didn't, then it's not really logical to be blaming them really.
As far as i know about human factors engineering, this should have been a well calculated decision rather than anything else.
Interface usability borrows a lot from the concept of simplicity and elegance.
In this case, the similiar interface to Macromedia Flash only increases the recognizability of their's, making it more approachable, thus learnable, hence more usable. Now woudn't that be the a good way for them to make some profits whih is why every company exists?
Mostly, it's people who've already used flash who they want to migrate over to their cheaper alternative. A similiar interface is only going to make their new users jobs easier by presenting a similiar interface.
What would you say?
And yeh,i know it's kinda late but a happy new year to all you guys!
Hi Inverse,
I agree with your point that there is nothing wrong is applying human factors engineering practices when developing a software. The only thing which got on my nerves was the fact that, instead of giving credit to Macromedia they have challenged Macromedia. Even though grass grows near the tree it doesn't harm the tree :) am I right? Look at the press release here : http://www.namo.com/news/press/index.php?mode=view&id=77
And even in their page they have not even given credit or mentioned about Macromedia which is very sad. I hope you understand what I am speaking about.
Cheers,
LAH