Says Macromedia India country manager Shriram Krishnamachari: "The products in the Macromedia MX family are major new releases that offer designers and developers powerful new functionality for creating effective user experiences across the spectrum of Internet solutions from basic websites to complex web applications."

The major new releases in the Macromedia MX product family includes the Macromedia ColdFusion MX, a rapid server-scripting environment and a powerful suite of development tools, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and Macromedia Fireworks MX.

"Internet-users want to move from browsing to doing and in the process accomplish complex tasks faster with more intuitive applications," says Macromedia Inc chairman and CEO Rob Burgess. "Rich Internet applications built with Macromedia MX make this possible by combining the interactivity that used to only be possible in client/server applications with the broad reach and low deployment cost of web applications."

As for current plans, Macromedia is rolling out the Alliance Partner Program to reach out to independent companies that provide services, solutions and products built around Macromedia technologies. The Macromedia Alliance helps partners develop skills, broaden market reach, and capture demand-generation opportunities by supporting the growth of each partners business with exclusive access to resources, knowledge, and training.

"We are committed to building strong relationships with developers, designers, IT managers, and business leaders. We help solution providers engage in design and application development and ensure that our complementary-technology vendors are kept up to date," says Krishnamachari. The other plan that Macromedia is embarking on is leveraging on BSA efforts to educate the market and customers with regards to proper software licensing. Macromedia has recently added the Network License Detection function into the latest range of software, which detects another user on a company network using the same copy of license.

Rich Internet applications take advantage of user experiences made possible by rich client technology that extends the capabilities of web-browsers and Internet-connected devices. Together, the Macromedia MX products are the first integrated family for building rich Internet applications and have already gained broad industry support from Apple, IBM, Intel, Liberate, Microsoft, OpenTV, Sony Ericsson, and Sun Microsystems.

Macromedia Inc provides software that empowers millions of developers and designers to efficiently create the most effective user experiences on the Internet. Its integrated family of tool, server, and client technologies enables the delivery of a wide range of Internet solutions from websites to rich Internet applications across platforms and devices. With an installed base of 3 million developers and designers, rich client software, deployed to 98 per cent of web-users, and a broad network of industry partners, Macromedia is a strategic IT supplier to customers in the business, government and education markets. The company has operations in more than 50 countries worldwide, and headquarters in San Francisco, California. In June 2001, Macromedia established firm presence in India with a base office in Mumbai.