ColdFusion is a database-to-Web gateway that's turning into a very popular tool for businesses that need to get lots of data on the Web real fast. Running concurrently with most Windows and Solaris Web servers, there are a growing number of Web providers offering ColdFusion as an available service. Once installed, you will access your database with ColdFusion templates, which look similar to standard HTML pages. The difference is that you can create a single template and serve up tons of information dynamically rather than having to create a separate page for every item.
Of course, when any new product hits the shelves, the first thing people question is why they should shell out the extra money for it. If you maintain databases that you would like to see on the Web, or if your site requires frequent updates with new products, events calendar or a lengthy new column, then you need to speak to a ColdFusion vendor immediately.
ColdFusion is a complete Web application server for developing and delivering scalable eBusiness applications. Designed to deliver on the key requirements of eCommerce and enterprise Web applications, ColdFusion lets you build everything from online stores to sophisticated business systems - quickly and easily.
ColdFusion optimizes developer productivity with an advanced HTML editor that creates pages with a brilliant editing technology for HTML, CFML, XML including advanced color coding. It includes a interactive debugger that steps through browser-based applications and easily finds and fixes problems - be they local or remote. Unlike other server offerings however, ColdFusion provides a high performance, multithreaded service and advanced features such as just-in-time compiling, load balancing, automatically restarting the server in case of failures, and static page publishing to ensure that your applications will scale to handle the most demanding sites.
The main advantage to ColdFusion is that the client software does not require coding in a traditional programming language; instead, you build applications by combining standard HTML with a server-side markup language, the ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML). Comparing with the other technology like ASP, which supports JavaScripts and VBScripts only on some browsers, ColdFusion supports Java and C++, and fully integrates with object transaction middleware through COM, CORBA or EJB. CFML supports more than 70 server side tags, 200 functions and 800 third-party components - making it the most productive language available for creating advanced Web applications.
The ColdFusion Web application server is a complete development platform that provides the fastest way to integrate browser, server, and database technologies into powerful Web applications and interactive Web sites.