Contribute 3 and Flash Paper 2

Today, Macromedia announced new versions of both Contribute and FlashPaper, as well as the new Macromedia Web Publishing System.

So what is the "Macromedia Web Publishing System"? It's a repackaging of Contribute, FlashPaper and Macromedia Studio MX with the addition of a server component called "Contribute Publishing Services" that will make publishing with Contribute even smoother.

The Contribute Publishing Services server application allows web and IT managers to centrally manage users and website editing permissions. This new lightweight application is easily installed in minutes on Windows, Linux, and Unix servers or it can be deployed to standard J2EE application environments. The system also offers enterprise integration, so Macromedia is definetly aiming higher with this version.

Contribute is beefed up properly, with simple image editing capabilities as in DreamWeaver, better media embedding and CSS rendering, review and approvals, CMS & LMS Support, better MS Office integration and much more. Read more about the new features at the Macromedia site.

FlashPaper 2 is now a separate product that will not only output SWF, but also PDF's. Not only can you print documents, but now you can also search and copy the text just as with PDFs. FlashPaper integrates directly into Microsofts Office, so making PDFs is now just as easy as printing.

Another big difference is that FlashPaper is no longer just "something you get when buying Contribute", but rather a separate product at $79 ($699 for 10 users). This may seem steep, concidering that it was previously "free" with Contribute ($149), but that is really not comparable. Version 2 of FlashPaper is very different from the first. The addition of PDF output alone justifies this price. Compared to other products offering PDF output from Office, FlashPaper 2 is rather reasonable priced.

Seeing Macromedia now handling both SVG and PDFs is an interesting trend. SVG output in Flash has probably never been nearer and that would be bad news for Adobe that still has no integrated IDE for creating SVG documents.
Read more at Macromedia.com

 

 

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