It’s hard to avoid becoming distracted by some of the nonsense that lands in my email inbox. You know what I mean. I’d venture to guess you’ve read some of this stuff yourself. Stuff that just makes no sense whatever, but people spend tireless hours arguing over on our technical writing listservs. Take for instance several recent discussions on one of our more popular discussion forums about the demise of Adobe Framemaker and related issues.
FRAMEMAKER’S DEMISE – YEAH, RIGHT!
All that chatter—it’s nonsense. It’s also a waste of bandwidth (and resources). And, it ain’t gonna happen.
Why? Mathematics. Plain and simple. It just doesn’t add up.
Okay, here’s the proof. Adobe has somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 registered users of FrameMaker, depending on whose estimate you believe. So, let’s use a conservative estimate of 300,00 users for purposes of this exercise.
If 300,000 people bought FrameMaker for around $800 a seat that would yield $240 million dollars (US) in sales. And let’s suppose for a minute that Adobe already spent all that money creating new dazzling new products and services, and producing glitzy television commercials for its flagship PDF products. Where do you think they are going to go for more revenue? I’ll tell you, right back to their registered user base.
It’s a fact! It is far less expensive to retain existing customers than it is to acquire new ones.
If only 200,00 registered FrameMaker users upgraded to the next version of FrameMaker at $200 a pop that would yield a conservative $40 million dollars (US) in revenue. That’s not chump change. And, it’s an investment Adobe could make with little effort (comparatively speaking) and would require only a modest marketing budget. You won’t see any half-time commercials for FrameMaker during the next—or any other—Super Bowl. Adobe doesn’t need t expend the cash for such frivolous advertising because most existing FrameMaker users are clamoring for new FrameMaker goodies and XML whiz-bang functionality with bated breath.
Add to the mix that FrameMaker users often also purchase other Adobe products when they upgrade FrameMaker—most notably, new versions of Acrobat. When you calculate in these additional sales revenues, Adobe’s upper management would have to be out of their minds to stop creating new versions of FrameMaker. And, for the record, there’s no indication that any of Adobe’s top brass are anything but sound-thinking business people.
So, FrameMaker is not going away. Repeat after me. FrameMaker is NOT going away. Don’t believe the nonsense. That’s just what it is. A new release will probably be unleashed to the masses sometime this year or next, given Adobe’s previous release history.
My advice: Sit tight. Attend the FrameMaker Chautauqua 2005 and listen to the Adobe announcements. I think you’ll like what you hear!
FrameMaker Chautauqua 2005: http://www.travelthepath.com/conf2005.html]http://www.travelthepath.com/conf2005.html
ADOBE IS GOING TO DUMP WEBWORKS AND FORCE US TO USE ROBOHELP
Not even close! When Adobe acquired Macromedia they may have indeed gained rights to do whatever they please with e-Help (formerly RoboHelp), but making 300,000 to 500,000 existing users change the way they may use FrameMaker to create online help is not going to happen. That’s just dumb and doesn’t require any additional explanation.
My advice: Buy the professional version of Quadralay’s WebWorks tools and start thinking about how you’re going to dazzle your clients with the structured XML content you create in FrameMaker and glorify and make more useful in WebWorks.
ADOBE IS DROPPING ALL SUPPORT FOR THE MACINTOSH
No, they are not! Adobe has, however, made a smart business decision not to spend development dollars investing and marketing a new Macintosh version of FrameMaker. Why? Because not enough people bought the Macintosh version.
Adobe still offers a wide variety of products on the Mac OS and they will no doubt continue to do so. Unfortunately, the technical writing and engineering markets, FrameMaker’s bread and butter, are predominantly Windows shops (less so for engineers, who tend to lean toward Unix and increasingly Linux). Therefore, the Mac OS, while the best operating system around by most accounts, is a wonderful thing . I use it and don’t intend to switch to Windows or any other OS anytime soon, but as it stands today, it’s not viable for Adobe to create another unsuccessful Macintosh version of FrameMaker. That money could be better spent creating even more fabulous features designed to make content created with FrameMaker on Windows and Unix machines roar.
Of course, that may change. There’s some scuttlebutt floating around the media that Intel and Apple may join forces (perhaps with HP) to create a new paradigm. Imagine for a minute if future Macintosh computers came equipped with the same Intel processors used by the majority of the world’s Windows computers today. If that happened, people will be given a choice: to install the Windows operating system or the Mac OS on their personal computers, regardless of whether they own a Mac or a PC. If that day ever comes, I’m certain we will see some big budget commercials — even during the Super Bowl — and we may again see FrameMaker that would run on the Mac. I wouldn’t bet on it just yet, but Apple head honcho Steve Jobs has surprised me before.
My advice: Keep an eye on Apple. And, if you have use FrameMaker on your Mac, consider using Virtual PC or hanging on with FrameMaker 7.0 running in the Mac Classic environment.
It’s hard to avoid becoming distracted by some of the nonsense that lands in my email inbox. You know what I mean. I’d venture to guess you’ve read some of this stuff yourself. Stuff that just makes no sense whatever, but people spend tireless hours arguing over on our technical writing listservs. Take for instance several recent discussions on one of our more popular discussion forums about the demise of Adobe Framemaker and related issues.
FRAMEMAKER’S DEMISE – YEAH, RIGHT!
All that chatter—it’s nonsense. It’s also a waste of bandwidth (and resources). And, it ain’t gonna happen.
Why? Mathematics. Plain and simple. It just doesn’t add up.
Okay, here’s the proof. Adobe has somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 registered users of FrameMaker, depending on whose estimate you believe. So, let’s use a conservative estimate of 300,00 users for purposes of this exercise.
If 300,000 people bought FrameMaker for around $800 a seat that would yield $240 million dollars (US) in sales. And let’s suppose for a minute that Adobe already spent all that money creating new dazzling new products and services, and producing glitzy television commercials for its flagship PDF products. Where do you think they are going to go for more revenue? I’ll tell you, right back to their registered user base.
It’s a fact! It is far less expensive to retain existing customers than it is to acquire new ones.
If only 200,00 registered FrameMaker users upgraded to the next version of FrameMaker at $200 a pop that would yield a conservative $40 million dollars (US) in revenue. That’s not chump change. And, it’s an investment Adobe could make with little effort (comparatively speaking) and would require only a modest marketing budget. You won’t see any half-time commercials for FrameMaker during the next—or any other—Super Bowl. Adobe doesn’t need t expend the cash for such frivolous advertising because most existing FrameMaker users are clamoring for new FrameMaker goodies and XML whiz-bang functionality with bated breath.
Add to the mix that FrameMaker users often also purchase other Adobe products when they upgrade FrameMaker—most notably, new versions of Acrobat. When you calculate in these additional sales revenues, Adobe’s upper management would have to be out of their minds to stop creating new versions of FrameMaker. And, for the record, there’s no indication that any of Adobe’s top brass are anything but sound-thinking business people.
So, FrameMaker is not going away. Repeat after me. FrameMaker is NOT going away. Don’t believe the nonsense. That’s just what it is. A new release will probably be unleashed to the masses sometime this year or next, given Adobe’s previous release history.
My advice: Sit tight. Attend the FrameMaker Chautauqua 2005 and listen to the Adobe announcements. I think you’ll like what you hear!
FrameMaker Chautauqua 2005: http://www.travelthepath.com/conf2005.html]http://www.travelthepath.com/conf2005.html
ADOBE IS GOING TO DUMP WEBWORKS AND FORCE US TO USE ROBOHELP
Not even close! When Adobe acquired Macromedia they may have indeed gained rights to do whatever they please with e-Help (formerly RoboHelp), but making 300,000 to 500,000 existing users change the way they may use FrameMaker to create online help is not going to happen. That’s just dumb and doesn’t require any additional explanation.
My advice: Buy the professional version of Quadralay’s WebWorks tools and start thinking about how you’re going to dazzle your clients with the structured XML content you create in FrameMaker and glorify and make more useful in WebWorks.
ADOBE IS DROPPING ALL SUPPORT FOR THE MACINTOSH
No, they are not! Adobe has, however, made a smart business decision not to spend development dollars investing and marketing a new Macintosh version of FrameMaker. Why? Because not enough people bought the Macintosh version.
Adobe still offers a wide variety of products on the Mac OS and they will no doubt continue to do so. Unfortunately, the technical writing and engineering markets, FrameMaker’s bread and butter, are predominantly Windows shops (less so for engineers, who tend to lean toward Unix and increasingly Linux). Therefore, the Mac OS, while the best operating system around by most accounts, is a wonderful thing . I use it and don’t intend to switch to Windows or any other OS anytime soon, but as it stands today, it’s not viable for Adobe to create another unsuccessful Macintosh version of FrameMaker. That money could be better spent creating even more fabulous features designed to make content created with FrameMaker on Windows and Unix machines roar.
Of course, that may change. There’s some scuttlebutt floating around the media that Intel and Apple may join forces (perhaps with HP) to create a new paradigm. Imagine for a minute if future Macintosh computers came equipped with the same Intel processors used by the majority of the world’s Windows computers today. If that happened, people will be given a choice: to install the Windows operating system or the Mac OS on their personal computers, regardless of whether they own a Mac or a PC. If that day ever comes, I’m certain we will see some big budget commercials — even during the Super Bowl — and we may again see FrameMaker that would run on the Mac. I wouldn’t bet on it just yet, but Apple head honcho Steve Jobs has surprised me before.
My advice: Keep an eye on Apple. And, if you have use FrameMaker on your Mac, consider using Virtual PC or hanging on with FrameMaker 7.0 running in the Mac Classic environment.
