Read what leading journalists, analysts, and other industry authorities have to say about Macromedia solutions, and check out the many awards Macromedia's innovative products have won.
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Editors' Choice: Macromedia Studio 8
"Bottom Line: For creating polished and cutting-edge online and mobile content, the innovative Macromedia Studio 8 is in a league of its own."
BrandonHall.com
Excellence in E-Learning Award
Bronze Winner in Innovative Technology Category
October, 2005
Editors' Choice: Macromedia Flash Professional 8
"The good: Alpha-channel video; control effects and filters at runtime; polished font handling; smoother, faster file playback; interface improvements."
Editors' Choice: Macromedia Flash Basic 8
"Hobbyists wanting to put Flash content on their personal Web pages should opt for Flash Basic."
The 20th Annual SIIA Codie Awards – 2005
Best Content Management Solution - Macromedia Web Publishing System
Software Development Magazine Jolt Awards 2005
Product Excellence Award - Web Development Tools: Macromedia Flex 1.5
Product Excellence Award - Utilities: Captivate
Software Development Magazine Jolt Awards 2005
Productivity Award - Web Development Tools: Contribute 3
Productivity Award - Mobile Development Tools: Flash Lite 1.1
SmallBusinessComputing.com
Excellence in Technology Awards 2005
Macromedia Contribute 3: Best Small Business Product of the Year, Design Tool
SmallBusinessComputing.com
Excellence in Technology Awards 2005
Macromedia Breeze: Best Software and Services, Collaboration
Windows IT Pro Magazine Reader's Choice Awards 2004
Macromedia Studio MX 2004: Best Web Site Development Tool
Apple Design Award, Worldwide Developers Conference 2004
Macromedia Contribute: Best Product New to Mac OS X 2004
Presentations Magazine, Standing Ovation Awards 2004
Best Multimedia Authoring Solution: Director MX 2004
Presentations Magazine, Standing Ovation Awards 2004
Best Web Conferencing: Macromedia Breeze
AV Video Multimedia Producer
Director MX 2004 Review
"Director's new DVD-video support is something that has real potential. In my opinion, this feature can lead to new ways of deploying kiosks and DVDs."
MacDesign
Director MX 2004: Multimedia tool powerhouse
"Macromedia Director is the King Kong of interactive multimedia authoring programs! You'd have to search a lot of jungles to find any other authoring program that has as many features as Macromedia Director."
Training Media Review, Breeze Live Online Training Review
Overall rating: 4 out of 4 stars
"In my testing, Macromedia provides a superior choice with truly smooth performance, removing the fear factor for new or inexperienced users. Breeze Live delivers meetings that allow users to focus on the content, not on the computer."
InfoWorld, Flex Exclusive Review: Macromedia Brings Flash to the Enterprise
"With Flex, Macromedia continues to move the widely deployed Flash player away from its roots as a boutique animation viewer and closer to the mainstream of enterprise development."
AV Video Multimedia Producer, Webbed Feat: Macromedia Studio MX 2004 with Flash Professional, 5 out of 5 stars
"Whether you’re a hardened professional or a wide-eyed beginner, Studio MX 2004 is the single best package for creating and maintaining Web sites."
eMedia Editor’s Choice, Director MX 2004
"They've made Director, the software choice of multimedia developers for years, more relevant than ever by incorporating more modern development choices…This year they take it several steps further by adding new features that should make multimedia developers stand up and take notice."
MacWorld UK Editors’ Choice Award 2004, Multimedia/3D Software, Flash MX 2004
"Macromedia Flash MX 2004. Industry leader Macromedia Flash made its mark in the booming Web design market. No other software product has come close the range of capabilities that Flash MX 2004 offers to online interactive design."
Creative Mac, Director MX 2004 Review
"Quite simply, they nailed it. Director MX 2004 has some great new features, is a more economical product for cross-platform publishers and, most importantly, has a real future."
Government Computer News - Best New Technology Awards at FOSE
Winner: Best Enterprise Application Software, Macromedia Studio MX 2004
"Whether you’re new to Web development or an old pro, Macromedia Studio MX 2004 can give you what you need."
Computer Graphics World, Flash MX 2004 Review
“The new program includes sophisticated user interfaces and integrates databases, audio, and video. Every serious Flash developer/designer should upgrade to Flash MX 2004, if for only one reason: it creates Flash files that run faster.”
Software Development Magazine, No Flash in the Pan
"Macromedia’s website and Web application development environment has long been considered one of the best professional Web tools…This version is highly customizable, with built-in functionality to assist with development of a large number of different types of documents and dynamic pages. For developers who use visual development environments, Dreamweaver allows accurate visual layout of pages, as well as visual editing of existing pages without messing up your code."
MacDesign, Flash MX 2004, 4.5 out of 5 stars
"Flash MX 2004 with ActionScript 2 is here. Recognizing that designers and programmers use Flash differently, Macromedia offers two versions of the software: Flash MX 2004 (for designers) and Flash MX Professional 2004 (for advanced Web designers and application builders)."
MacDesign, Fireworks MX 2004
"Now, Macromedia has added several improvements to Fireworks MX 2004 that make the program even more convenient, flexible, and responsive."
Brandon-Hall Gold Excellence in E-Learning Award: RoboDemo
Human Resources Executive Top Training Product Award: RoboDemo
Delphi Informant - Readers Choice Award 2003: RoboHelp
AV Video Multimedia Producer, November 2003
"Studio MX 2004’s core components—Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks—have received substantial overhauls…One of the major selling points of Studio MX was the tight integration among its applications. With MX 2004, the apps are even more tightly integrated, and they’ve received new features, as well."
Macworld, December 2003
Macworld Eddy Award
Macromedia Contribute
Macromedia Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is (PDF, 193K)
"Since the launch of its MX family of products, Macromedia has talked a good game about improving user experience with X Internet apps. The new MX 2004 suite shows that the vendor isn't kidding around."
.NET Developer’s Journal
Best .NET Documentation and Help Tools — Winner: RoboHelp Office Pro for .NET
ColdFusion Developer’s Journal
Best Book — Winner: ColdFusion MX Web Application Construction Kit, by Ben Forta, Macromedia Press; First Runner-up: Advanced ColdFusion MX Application Development, by Ben Forta, Macromedia Press
Best Content Management Tool — Winner: Macromedia Contribute
Best Web Development Tool — Winner: Dreamweaver MX
Best Web Site or Community — Winner: Macromedia DevNet
Small Business Computing, Excellence in Technology Award: Best Design Tool/HTML Editor, January 2004
"Macromedia Dreamweaver MX took top honors in Small Business Computing Excellence in Technology Award in the Design Tool/HTML Editor category. The overwhelming favorite took in 55 percent of the vote, solidifying Dreamweaver's position as favorite among professional e-commerce site designers. In its most recent release, Dreamweaver made some strong improvements including easier-to-use cascading stylesheets, better integration with Word and Excel, a built-in graphics editor, and a streamlined interface."
Forbes
Best of the Web 2003:
Content Management, Macromedia Contribute
"For $99 per user, Contribute allows non-experts to update Web pages and publish new content using familiar applications like Word and Excel, as well as tools for video, graphics, sound and animation...The low cost of the product makes it an attractive option for small and medium-sized businesses that need bare-bones Web content management."
VARBusiness
Annual Report Card 2003:
Best Product Innovation, Macromedia, Web Application Integration Category
"The VARBusiness Annual Report Card is the most significant benchmark of vendor/partner relationships in the industry because winners are selected by their own solution providers," says Editorial Director Robert C. DeMarzo. "There is no better gauge of a company's success than the satisfaction of its customers."
Studio MX 2004 Overview
"Flash has evolved way beyond the animation/vector tool it started out as. It is now a serious application building tool, worthy of its own harem of supplementary software: the Flash Communication Server, Flash Remoting, and Flash Paper, to name a few. ColdFusion supports manipulation of Flash objects and Flash is now open to every major server tool out there."
Macromedia
Dreamweaver MX 2004 - 8 out of 10
- Editors' Choice
"Dreamweaver is a seriously big application with advanced development tools for Web site design and maintenance. It lets designers swiftly create layouts, and developers incorporate the latest in data-driven applications. Sporting a reasonably uncluttered but intricate interface, Dreamweaver MX 2004 offers quite a bit of handholding in the form of automatic code generation and provides an excellent interface for directly accessing HTML code."
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 - 8 out of 10 - Editors' Choice
"The grand master of Flash animation apps is now more powerful, requires less programming, and includes better help. The good: Powerful scripting language; FX and interactive objects now require less programming; new API for plug-ins; new usability features."
Macromedia
Fireworks MX 2004 - 8.6 out of 10
- Editors' Choice
" ...when it comes to Web graphics creation, Macromedia's Fireworks is still the undisputed king. It sports a comprehensive set of graphics tools; a sleek, efficient interface; and tight integration with other members of Macromedia's MX family (Dreamweaver, Flash, FreeHand). The program is simple to master, too."
Dreamweaver MX 2004
"The Big Question, as always: should you fork out for the update? Well, if you use CSS in your Web design work -- especially for page layout -- then the answer this year is "absolutely!"
Studio MX 2004 Review: 5 out of 5 stars
"If you're a professional Web designer, you should pick up a copy of Macromedia Studio MX 2004. You won't need anything else."
Flash MX 2004 Review: 5 out of 5 stars
"Creating a Flash Web application is a great way to create powerful, high-impact Web pages. And Macromedia Flash MX 2004 is ideal."
Dreamweaver MX 2004 Review: 5 out of 5 stars
"Dreamweaver offers all the power and control that a designer could want, combined with the speed and production tools that a developer could want."
Dreamweaver's New Features: A Dream Come True
The release of Dreamweaver MX 2004 (this version is so cutting edge that it's apparently three months ahead of the calendar) will not disappoint. It takes powerful but certainly under-used cascading style sheets (CSS) and makes them central. Creating rich CSS sites with Dreamweaver is now as simple as creating HTML. Other improvements include better integration with Word and Excel, a built-in graphics editor, and a streamlined interface.
ZDNet UK Editors' Choice
Last year, Macromedia impressed us with a high-calibre suite of Web-design, content-management, graphics-creation and site-building tools called Studio MX. This year, the dream package gets a face-lift.
BAT’s Best of the Year: Studio MX 2004
"The most powerful Web authoring & design package on the planet. It includes the new Flash MX 2004 Professional—poised to animate our lives—from mobile phone to wide screen and beyond. There's also the robust Fireworks MX 2004, ColdFusion MX 6.1 Developer Edition, Freehand MX, and a supercharged Dreamweaver MX 2004. The latter offers designers & programmers a dream house environment for developing cutting edge Web sites. This studio is home suite home."
Oversee Web site editing with Macromedia Contribute 2
"Web site maintenance tasks often fall through the cracks due to tight schedules and limited resources. One way to stay on top of the maintenance chores is to roll out Macromedia Contribute 2 to your internal customers and let them shoulder some of the responsibility."
Spotlight: Studio MX 2004 First Look
"There aren't many products I use every day, but Macromedia Studio MX is one of them. So when Macromedia let me know that MX 2004 was on the home stretch, I couldn't have been happier. Here's a quick run-down of each application."
Windows & .NET Magazine Readers' Choice Awards, September 2003
Best Web Site Development Tools: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX
InfoWorld 2003 Readers' Choice Award, July 2003
Best App Dev and Integration Product: Studio MX
Seybold Publications, September 2003
Hot Picks: Studio MX
PC World, July 2003
Best Web Design Software
PC World/2003 World Class Award:
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX
Contribute 2: Doin' It For Themselves
"All in all, Contribute is a solid piece of software with the best intentions. I mean, it's really trying to make your job easier and keep people from breathing down your neck all day. How nice! Now if only it came bundled with Tetris or something to help soak up all of that new-found free time."
You, Too, Can Be a Webmaster
"Web authoring is so complicated, and the havoc that can be wreaked when attempting to change pages is so great, that Web editing has remained the province of a computer priesthood. Macromedia, a publisher of high-end Web software tools, wants to change that. It has designed a program called Contribute that makes it easy for people without expertise in Web editing to update and even create pages."
Mixed Media; All-star computer baseball, high-amp Shostakovich, garage band anthems and playing poker like the pros: a cross-section of personal pleasures
"Macromedia Contribute; $99 - Your website is out of date. You can't freshen it up because you don't know HTML, and the teenager who usually does it for you has fallen off the grid again. What the #*%@ are you supposed to do? Try Macromedia Contribute. Once a site is designed, this app allows you to go in and update its content with an "intuitive user interface." In other words, it's as easy as using Word or Excel. Finally."
Software Development Magazine, June 2003
13th Annual Jolt & Productivity Awards: Macromedia ColdFusion MX
SIIA 18th Annual Codie Awards, May 2003
Best Business Productivity Product or Service
Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX, Macromedia
SIIA 18th Annual Codie Awards, May 2003
Best Internet-Based Communication/Collaboration Solution
Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX, Macromedia
SIIA 18th Annual Codie Awards, May 2003
Best Web Services / EAI Solution
Macromedia JRun 4, Macromedia
ClickZ Marketing Excellence Awards, 2003
Product of the Year & Best Rich Streaming Media Technology/Product
Visual Studio Magazine 2003
The Best .NET Products of 2003: Web Design and Development Tools
Readers Choice Merit Award
Macromedia Studio MX
MacDesign Editor's Choice Award - January/February 2003 issue
Macromedia Flash MX: Web Animation Application
Streaming Media Magazine Readers Choice Awards 2003
Best Streaming New Software Product: Honorable Mention, Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX
Streaming Media Magazine Readers Choice Awards 2003
Best Up and Coming Streaming Company - Macromedia for Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX
