Re: Whither FrameMaker? or, should they switch?

["Sarah O'Keefe" <okeefe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>A client asked me a multipart question about FrameMaker. I
>know some of the answer from the community's long and
>heated discussions about it: what is FrameMaker's future at
>Adobe's hands?

Hi Deborah,

I have some un-informed speculation to offer on this question. I should
stress that I don't KNOW anything, and I don't have any information from
Adobe (or anyone else) about FrameMaker's distant future. (In the near
term, Adobe has announced that FM6 is coming out sometime this year.)

But here's my opinion, FWIW.

The FrameMaker code base is aging. It was first built circa 1985 and has
been updated and tweaked ever since. To really bring FrameMaker into the
00s (or the 90s), it's necessary to toss the code base and start over.
(Shades of PageMaker, anyone?)

FrameMaker has a significant, fanatic user base with very specific
requirements.

It's my uninformed opinion that Adobe will take all of FrameMaker's
functionality and build a version of InDesign that contains all of this
functionality. This will allow them to use InDesign's new, modular,
plug-in-able code and put in FrameMaker features that we all know and love.
This might be "InDesign for Techies" or "InFrame" (sorry Paul and Dennis)
or whatever. It might just be added to the base InDesign product (but I
kind of doubt it...graphic artists don't need all the stuff we do).

This transition probably won't occur for at least two or three years.

And if they keep all the goodies that we need in FrameMaker, I think it
could be a good thing. I've done some stuff in InDesign, and the type it
creates is spectacular.

Sarah

*************************************************************
Sarah O'Keefe  Scriptorium Publishing Services, Inc.
okeefe@scriptorium.com              919-481-2701 x13
FrameMaker for Dummies: http://www.scriptorium.com/books.html
Advanced WWP training: http://www.scriptorium.com/advwwp.html



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