JD on EP

Update: Best I've found so far is on the technology page, if you click the little tab that says "UI technologies". It's mostly "what is flex?" stuff, but here are the two paragraphs which seem to have the most meat:

LiveCycle ES leverages Flex to provide a unified developer experience for creating customer engagement applications -- applications that revolutionize the user experience. Designers and developers can use Flex to create rich, interactive components that can be used by LiveCycle form designers to extend the functionality of form guides to further enhance user interaction and productivity. Leveraging the rich Flex component library, these components can include charts, data grids, and Flash animations -- as well as custom components that harness the power of LiveCycle Data Services ES, such as click-to-chat, live help, or real-time data streaming.

Developers can also use Flex to customize Adobe LiveCycle Workspace ES software, the intuitive Flex based application that lets end users initiate and participate in forms-based business processes through a web browser. This customization helps ensure that the LiveCycle Workspace ES interface is branded appropriately and meets the specific and unique business requirements of your organization. LiveCycle Workspace ES also integrates with LiveCycle Data Services ES to automatically synchronize data with the LiveCycle server.

From the first paragraph I don't get the clear sense that you can deliver directly to SWF -- almost makes it sound like you can put flash-y stuff atop existing forms. I'll keep looking for a clearer, more concise, more comprehensible document throughout the day.

Fortunately, a subsequent staff quote at InfoWorld clearly confirms creation: "'I can create a UI with [Adobe] Flex that leverages all of the back-end services of LiveCycle,' said Brian Wick, Adobe group product marketing manage for LiveCycle."

IMHO, LiveCycle Data Services is little more than Flex Data Services re-branded to attempt to justify a price that is unreasonable for all but large enterprise projects. Too bad, as it could otherwise be an important technology in the Web 2.0 arena.

[jd sez: If that were true, then Adobe LiveCycle would not have predated Flex Data Services.]

Apparently LiveCycle Enterprise Suite is a different beast from LiveCycle Data Services (the latter is the next rev of Flex Data Services, thus it is re-branded). Both are entirely out of reach for 99.999% of Web 2.0 stuff.

JD,

I don't want to kick off another debate about all of this, but in all honestly, FDS changed to LDS is brand consolidation. Similiar to Macromedia Breeze becoming "Adobe Acrobat Connect" (which is great, as getting ones house in order for the LiveCycle launches is appropriate but Hans is partially correct, it's FDS with extra LiveCycle pieces added on) to underpin a more stronger value proposition to Enterprise Customers then before (as it's argued that FDS was a failure).

Interesting times ahead though :)
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Scott Barnes
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft.

I would not consider FDS a "failure" in any way, but it does show Macromedia cum Adobe's typical misfirings on their server technologies. They have consistently priced themselves out of the market with (almost) every innovative server solution they've launched. I say 'almost' because Flash Media Server (aka "flashcom") is doing well; they found that partnering with ISPs and CDNs brought FMS's accessibility down to the small developer level. Adobe has said that they want to develop the same kind of partner network for FDS, but I haven't seen any strong indications that there are serious initiatives afoot to do this. It's a shame, and now that FDS has been rebranded into "LiveCycle Data Services"(*), I don't foresee any attempts to bring it to the masses.

* (funny that Adobe talking heads were bashing Microsoft not long ago for their uncouth Silverlight brand name, when they are using such a mouthful as "LiveCycle Data Services".)