Macromedia Contribute now available

In only three weeks since it was first announced, the technology preview of Macromedia Contribute was downloaded by tens of thousands of web professionals and non-technical business users. Macromedia Contribute is now available from Direct Distribution Services (www.flashmx.co.za).

"The response to Macromedia Contribute in such a short time has been astounding and we are happy to provide a product that simultaneously increases productivity for two different user bases," said Norm Meyrowitz, president of products, Macromedia. "Macromedia Contribute reaches a whole new class of users for Macromedia while enabling our developer base to focus their time on more technical tasks."

Unlike traditional content management systems, Macromedia Contribute doesn't require a long implementation time or large technical staff. The R1299-per-seat product is a full-featured desktop application that provides a practical, flexible way to easily enable end users to update web content without learning complicated workflows.

For business users, Macromedia Contribute allows web content updates in three simple steps. Users browse to the web page they want to update, edit the page just like using a word processor, and publish their updated page to the live site. Contribute also features integration with Microsoft Word and Excel, so users can drag-and-drop Word or Excel files from their desktop onto a page and the content is added with their formatting intact.

For web professionals, Macromedia Contribute enables delegation of web content maintenance while protecting the site design, code, and functionality. Contribute rolls out in minutes using simple yet powerful administrative settings and encrypted connection keys. Contribute also maintains a living history of page changes so users can easily roll back changes and switch between different versions of a page. In addition, the quality of the code is guaranteed because Contribute is built on the core HTML authoring engine of Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, the preferred choice of more than 90 percent of web professionals for the clean code it produces. For more information on Macromedia Contribute, go to www.macromedia.com/go/contribute/.

An update to Macromedia Dreamweaver MX is also available today to enable advanced Macromedia Contribute administration, as well as to improve performance of Dreamweaver MX. The update is available at www.macromedia.com/go/dmxupdate/.

Pricing and availability

Macromedia Contribute is now available from DDS. The product runs on Windows and is available with introductory pricing at $99. Education, government, and corporate volume licensing will be available. The product will initially ship in English, with French, German, Japanese, and Mac OS X versions expected to be available in 2003.

About DDS

Direct Distribution Services (www.flashmx.co.za) is a supplier of world-leading software & hardware for the creative, publishing, web development & enterprise markets throughout Southern Africa.