This post by Hal Helms titled A New Vision for ColdFusion is probably THE best thing I’ve read about ColdFusion in quite awhile. Hal has some great examples of why ColdFusion shouldn’t try to compete with Java and .net and instead become something on it’s own…

If the bloggers who want ColdFusion to be more like Java have their way, ColdFusion will just be another general-purpose language. Wanting to have it all is a fantasy. In the real world, defining what a brand is also means defining what a brand is not. Every R&D dollar that goes into making ColdFusion more like Java is a dollar that is not available for making ColdFusion the best choice for creating great user interfaces.

I agree – with Flex and Apollo on the horizon – as well as Adobe’s other tools (Fireworks and Flash) I can see ColdFusion becoming the backbone for rapid application development. For 90% of the projects out there – ColdFusion will probably be all most people need – and for those huge enterprise applications – as Hal said – prototype in ColdFusion then build it in Java or .net.