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Pacifica and CoCoMo - A Good Thing for FMS Developers?

Posted At : October 7, 2007 7:30 PM | Posted By : Stefan Richter | Related Categories: FMS , General , Collaboration

We all know that Adobe is pushing put new products and services at an insane rate these days. Apart from announcing Share at MAX in Chicago there were two other products which caught my attention and which are very exciting and a bit scary at the same time: Pacifica and CoCoMo.
Let me summarize what I know so far about these two products/services and then tell you why I think some of it is a little scary.

Pacifica
· A service for developers to integrate high-quality voice, messaging and presence into Adobe Flash and Flex applications.
· Version 1 will support high-quality voice chat, text messaging, presence, NAT (Network Address Translation)/firewall traversal, AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)/HTML support and Flash/Flex capabilities.
· Future planned features include video chat, peer-to-peer support, Adobe AIR support and PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) access capabilities.

Sounds like FMS on steroids but as it's a service there's a likelyhood that the serverside won't be scritable. But that's just my initial thought on it. The features are of course jaw dropping: perr to peer VoiP in Flex/Flash/AIR. Wow.

CoCoMo
· 'CoCoMo is a service for integrating real-time collaboration such as screen sharing and whiteboarding into applications'
· It is built on top of Adobe Connect (formely Breeze). Connect itself will see an update with an entirely rebuilt Flex based UI.
· APIs for real time data messaging, real time AV (audio, video) streaming, presence, permissions, and real-time file publishing and collaboration

Again this sounds a lot like FMS's features - on top of which Connect was built of course.
According to a post by Brian Lesser on the Flash Media List Pacifica will be an add-on to the Flash Player, similar to the current Connect Player. The major breaking news here is that it will go peer to peer at some stage. That's huge huge huge. We'll be able to build a Skype clone in Flex or Flash and integrate it tightly with our own applications.
CoCoMo appears to be a bunch of components which essentially allow you to build your own flavour of Connect, using the Connect back end. All this is really exciting but here my concern: where does this leave FMS and where will it fit in? There also seems to be a significant overlap in terms of features between Pacifica and CoCoMo although the peer to peer aspect may be enough of a differentiator even if audio, video, presence and so on will be supported by both services.

It is clear that many applications that we may build in FMS today will be built on top of Pacifica or CoCoMo. Will that make FMS obsolete for anything but pushing video? Will Adobe discourage us from using FMS for certain applications and why have they chosen to built CoCoMo on top of Connect and not FMS?
Nigel Pegg of Adobe seems to have had heavy involvement in the CoCoMo development - and he used to be heavily involved with the initial FCS components. Could this be a sign that resources are being shifted away from FMS?

Last but not least, is it a clever move by Adobe to move more and more into the hosted services sector or should they stay out of it an concentrate on selling software and servers?
We all know that Breeze essentially competed (and under its new Connect name still does) with applications which FMS developers could and do develop - minus the screensharing feature of course which to this day has never made it to FMS uless you hack around it. I do have to ask the question: should Adobe really develop, promote and sell a service such a CoCoMo or should they leave the component development to us developers? Where should the line be drawn? Would a decent Connect API not be enough? Or couldn't FMS fulfill all these requirements - it's what Connect uses under the hood, isn't it? Will people like myself be competing with Adobe on yet another front or is this a polite hint to re-orientate ourselves? Do tell.
Looking at the announced FMS3 features I can see no new components and no hint of AS3 support on the server side. Instead there's a lot of talk about the new video codec, increased security features and RTMPE - most of which is directly related to video delivery rather than collaboration. Makes you think doesn't it? Could we see FMS move towards the platform to push video to AMP, the web and custom players while CoCoMo takes the slot of collaborative applications and Pacifica taking the web conferencing slot?

I'm sure it will all make more sense once we find out more and I really don't mind on top of what I build my products - but an Adobe hosted service and a dependency on their back end does not feel as sexy as having my own FMS box to mess with. and even less so if my components will be inferior to what's Adobe about to release.
And one last thing: I have had to work with Connect's web admin API in the past and I can only hope that this new service has seen an overhaul and comes with more detailed docs than the old one - it was not pretty.

Ok so at this stage I know too little about both Pacifica and CoCoMo to be certain what the future of FMS development may hold. Many of the announced features are mouth watering yet they leave a slightly bitter after taste too. What's everyone else's take on this?

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Presentation on CoCoMo and the next version of Adobe Connect (October 18, 2007)

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Saw it coming a mile away. We'll see how it affects the FMS community I suppose. I don't know about it having too huge of an effect but it will take away some work I guess.

Bitter taste in mouth? That hasn't gone away in a long time (since Breeze started up) and Adobe's got a pretty good track record of keeping up that "moving into their own customer's business area" lately. I wouldn't expect it to stop. That's how capitalism works isn't it?

On the flip side, I think by showcasing something really cool might bring more awareness to FMS and others might see more potential in it which in turn makes for more work. In that respect, hopefully FMS will finally grow into something much more robust and cooler that we wouldn't have imagined before. Who knows.

Graeme

# Posted By Graeme | 10/7/07 10:24 PM

I saw the presentation on CoCoMo at Max and it definitely left a bad taste in my mouth. The bright side is that Connect seems to look and functions exactly as it did before, so theyre only competing with a limited subset of their customers. Whats really weird about this offering is that it allows people to pseudo develop atop a hosted Connect infrastructure essentially giving Adobe the ability to avoid providing professional services (by far their biggest problem with the Connect offering thus far) and giving developers the ability to create a Connect like experience (with the ASP revenue still going to Adobe, presumably). Anyway, this is about the same as analogous to Adobe offering one click web templates and hosting with Dreamweaver chances are FMS offerings will be more frequent but substantially watered down.

During one presentation at Max (presented by someone from the Adobe XD team) someone brought the why are you competing with your customers question up and the presenter essentially answered that Adobe is aware of it but moving forward anyway. He also added do a good job and well just buy you. Right, makes me feel better, thanks.

Pacifica, on the other hand, seems awesome, and I will be very happy to be able to use voip in Flash Player. Well have to wait for more details to really understand what this means for us as developers.

# Posted By Jim Phelan | 10/7/07 11:39 PM

Two clarifications on Pacifica initial release, of course all things are not set in stone. Pacifica service's media goes end to end. Also the developer will own the whole experience in terms of user's etc... The end user doesn't sign up for the Pacifica service just developers.
http://renaun.com/blog/2007/10/03/241/

# Posted By Renaun Erickson | 10/8/07 5:55 AM

Bummer, don't want to be leaving any bad taste in anyone's mouth... :(

I can't really comment on long-term plans (because, I'm really just one person), but, I don't think there's any great reason for angst here, and some good reason for optimism. FMS is a thriving business, and I don't see CoCoMo damaging that. Personally, I'm holding out for what Graeme's referring to in the final paragraph in his comment. I'll get further into this in a post of my own at "the blog", but CoCoMo is really a methodology for building RTC applications; it's not here to mess with server sales. The fact that we're focusing on Hosted Services to start reflects somewhat on immediate priorities, but how would you like to see this evolve? What kind of information would you like to see about CoCoMo (camelCaseGettingOlderAndOlder...) to help frame the discussion? We definitely don't want to do this in a vacuum.

# Posted By Nigel Pegg | 10/8/07 7:41 AM

What about parallel things happening on the community? anyone of the Wowza guys have something to write about it? We have been "fighting" with the FMS for a while, and to hear about voip on the flash player sounds like two things, either: stop wasting time developing apps on the fms (no use, big apps "can do everything" already) or, follow the development on the pacifica project and get ready to enjoy the possibility of offering voip on the flash player to your FMS users.

# Posted By Fabio Cujino | 10/8/07 9:14 AM

As far as I understand, Pacifica will not be true peer-to-peer like Skype. Instead P2P that they mention is point-to-point, meaning SIP media channels will be directly between the clients where firewalls allow. Signalling etc will still go through central server. So building large-scale voip app using Pacifica, will most likely still mean serious investment in server-side infrastructure (and thus Pacifica/FMS licenses).

# Posted By Erki Esken | 10/8/07 12:22 PM

Hi Erki,
the pacifica blog states the following: 
# Right now, Pacifica enables point-to-point (P2P) transmission of the media channel once the connection is established via our servers. 
# We are dedicated to a complete P2P solution going forward, to eliminate the complex server back end and configuration needed with most VoIP technologies. 
So this to me sounds that yes, initially there will be a server involved and then the setup will evolve to a complete point to point system. 
How does Skype work in detail? Surely they involve some sort of server too or where do I log on when I fire up Skype? Their system went down a couple of months ago and again this seems to suggest that a back end of servers is involved at least for managing the system. The actual call may be different. Would you agree?

# Posted By Stefan | 10/8/07 12:44 PM

Nigel, thanks for commenting. I think what you said makes perfect sense and certainly makes me feel a bit more comfortable. The problem from our end is probably more with the lack of details rather than the product itself. If it creates more opportunities than it takes away then I'll roll with it.

# Posted By Stefan | 10/8/07 12:47 PM

>How does Skype work in detail? Surely they involve some sort of server too or where do I log on when I fire up Skype? Their system went down a couple of months ago and again this seems to suggest that a back end of servers is involved at least for managing the system. The actual call may be different. Would you agree?

A server will always be involved! Both in Pacifica and in Skype. In Skype for example it keeps track of logged in users and their ip addresses. It also helps enabling calls between people that are behind firewalls.

The audio/video data might be sent as p2p but the connection between 2 P2P points will always be established with the help of a server.

And this is exactly what adobe says:
>Pacifica enables point-to-point (P2P) transmission of the media channel once the connection is established via our servers

# Posted By Naicu octavian | 10/8/07 3:05 PM

Longest. Answer. Ever.
http://blogs.adobe.com/collabmethods/2007/10/cocom...

# Posted By Nigel Pegg | 10/8/07 9:16 PM

Thanks to Nigel for the clarifying blog post.

# Posted By Jim Phelan | 10/8/07 10:07 PM

thanks +1 Nigel, very good info. Now fix those bugs ;-)

# Posted By Stefan | 10/8/07 11:08 PM

Yeah - and release it!

# Posted By grimmwerks | 10/11/07 4:08 AM

Well, now we know why Adobe could not give a hoot about "really" updating FMS beyond a tweak or two. They are going to bypass FMS alltogether to build their next generation platforms. At what will be the cost to us? Adobe has to make a living but some of this is getting expensive. What that tells me is that the competition will attack Adobe from a Java angle to get cost effective development tools back into the hands of developers. Its a never ending cycle in the new age. Just when the world invests 500.00 a share into Google stock thinking that Google's crap is truly made of 24k gold: They too will fall like an overpriced condo in Miami. I guess as long as I can make a living with Pacifica and CoCoMo (meaning my employer has to have deep pockets) then its ok with me. On the otherhand, you might want to squirrel away the next copy of FMS because it sounds like the last. Adobe has figured out there is more money to be made in the deep pockets of the world's companies than worrying about individual developers. It just means we become less developers and more administrators, but the work is still there. Anyone hiring a CoCoMo administrator? Give it a couple of years before the first ad pops up on Monster.

# Posted By Randy Miller | 10/17/07 2:42 PM

@Randy - You should read my long post (although, it's really long). Skip to points 2) and 5). We actually want to make this stuff cheaper than hosting your own servers. If it isn't, please keep buying servers :-).

# Posted By Nigel Pegg | 10/17/07 10:07 PM

Gotcha. It is surely time to merge this broadband/Voip/new media thing once and for all. However, I am still trying to figure out how to apply the new Adobe Media player. Right now it just sits on the desk top and is of little value. I don't know how to brand it or submit content for it or how to intergrate adverstising with it. Adobe has always been on the right track, but we are still not there yet. Just a bunch of poorly intergrated ideas: A connect classroom over there, a flash 1.1 on mobile over here, an animated cartoon in flash over the web here all while the real power lies with the cable companies and cable television that continues to dish up what people view, the amatuer stuff on YouTube not withstanding. What I think we should do is use FMS to launch talk radio over the internet with me as host. Anyone want to start a real new media company as in web 3.0? I want to take the old model and totaly apply it over ip into a new model. Not a bunch of facebook or myspace pages of a bunch of people. Everyone has already done that. I want the reins of power. Real talk show hosts, real video documentaries of professional origin, real page turners, real live sports, real classrooms, real "made for ip" movies, the kind of things people have come to expect from their tvs, the big screen, books and colleges of the past.

# Posted By Randy Miller | 10/17/07 10:37 PM

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