Flex 2 is a good technology for development of rich Internet applications, and Adobe is already making some serious changes in the pricing policy to bring Flex 2 to masses. But to make it attractive to five million of professional Java developers they should offer Eclipse-based Flex Builder IDE for free. Java developers enjoy a variety of excellent free Java IDE such as Eclipse, NetBeans and JDeveloper. Expensive IDEs like JBuilder or RAD are only used by some filthy rich corporations . An excellent IntellijIDEA IDE is not expensive, but it has very modest market share: Java developers are spoiled by good open source products.

Each time I talk to Java developers about Flex 2, the first question they ask, “Is it free? rdquo; I answer that even without IDE you can use a plain text editor for writing code, and can create and run a small community-grade Web site for free using Flex command line compilers, Flex framework components and Flex Data Services on a single processor server… For existing Flex 1.5 developers Flex Builder environment is a big improvement , but Java developers have seen it all and will think twice before reaching for their wallets.

I’m not in the position of giving Adobe advices, it’s just a voice from the trenches.