Overall I think MAX has really gone downhill. We have attended every MAX event even back before Allaire was bought by Macromedia when the developer conference was called Devcon.

Once again Macromedia managed to be unprepared and seemed to put less effort this year into it than the one before. The problems experienced last year where still there.

Classes were standing room only and even the general assembly saw over 100 people standing up because there were not enough seats. This was a problem last year as well.

This is uncalled for since it was clear to them the number of people that would be attending and even so they should have had more than enough room prepared.

When you register EARLY for a class you should not have to stand for the entire hour or more to attend it. This is totally ridiculous and a problem that we saw the last couple of years, so once again Macromedia dropped the ball.

The classes every year seemed to be nothing more than a rehash of the year before although I did manage to take some that offered some good advice and were a bit more for the advanced developer.

MAX historically hasn’t offered much for the advanced developer and from the talk I heard from other attendees they won’t be having many of those developers back next year.

MAX may soon be nothing more than a Macromedia commercial to new developers. I do hope they get it together and make some major changes next year.

The vendors that attend have dwindled down to around 10 or so and they are the same basic vendors that have always attended. Big names like Intel and Apple don’t show up anymore and even those that were scheduled didn’t all show up; I saw some empty booths. There are only so many times you can hear about Cold Fusion hosting.

I was also very irritated that even the free gift was a screw up. Glen and I both were unable to get our free gift because they ran out of XL sizes. There were many other very upset people and no help or assurance from the Macromedia staff that we would get our gift. A big letdown and slap in the face for those of us who shelled out $1000 (just for the registration) to Macromedia to be there.

My recommendation for people thinking about going to MAX next year is to stay away unless Macromedia can show they plan to fix their mistakes and provide a world class experience. I can tell you that in the 4 years I have attended it has not gotten better but instead worse so I have no faith it will change. This from a company that prides itself on creating great “experiences”; this really sends an opposing message.

I hope they prove me wrong and make amends, but right now I am not convinced.