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Macromedia announced their release of Coldfusion's latest version on February 7, 2005. This latest version is ColdFusion MX 7.0 clearly offers several important new features and useful improvements on its existing ones. A major focus of this release is to target new ColdFusion developers and get them up to speed even faster than before.

Before we go on about the solid and massive set of new capabilities that's imparted in the latest version of ColdFusion, let's get a grip on what this application program really is and its significance in the Web development technology today.

Although full details on ColdFusion are available from Macromedia, we give you a piece of important knowledge about it. Thus, if you haven't heard enough of ColdFusion, it is a very powerful and easy-to-use application server. It is actually a J2EE application that interprets a simple, tag-based language called the ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML). The CFML is compiled to Java byte code and executed on a Java application server such as JRun (included), WebSphere, WebLogic, or virtually any other J2EE server.

Here's a general preview of the new features and improvements that CFMX 7.0 offers:

• Speed enhancements - targets new ColdFusion developers and get them up to speed even faster than before. While simplicity is already one of CF's chief benefits, enhancements are provided by having the "Getting Started" resources. Two fully functional sample applications are available, that does a great job of showing off the new features along with demonstrating coding best practices.
• New and powerful presentation options - Flash-based forms and generating PDF files are now possible with stunning ease and give developers very powerful presentation options. Existing presentation elements like charts and graphs have had their capabilities expanded.
• Sophisticated enterprise applications ' Although CF is favorable and simple enough for new developers, Macromedia didn't ignore the more advanced ColdFusion developers. Through its new version it can also scale to extremely sophisticated enterprise applications. CFMX 7.0 brings some impressive new capabilities, like ability to interact with SMS text messaging and development of non-HTTP event gateways. This is to satisfy the list of large customers using ColdFusion which now includes JP Morgan, NEC, Reebok, Victoria's Secret, and Bank of America among many others.

You also have to know that CFMX 7.0 uses the core code from the very mature 6.1 release. Most of the existing code was not changed; the focus was on adding new features. Thus, version 7.0 promises to be stable and backwards compatible.

Overall, this new release of ColdFusion is quite a reliable tool that brings with it a huge amount of capacity that will take Web application to wider possibilities. -30-