Re: Fw: They're kidding, right?

["Dov Isaacs" <isaacs@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thomas,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I will forward this
to the management of our Technical Support Organization. Clearly,
we continue to develop, sell, and support FrameMaker and a few other
selected products under some flavours of UNIX. There has been no
change.

        - Dov


At 4/18/2001 08:59 AM, Thomas Michanek wrote:
>I simply have to forward this message from comp.text.frame
>It would be interesting to see a comment from someone at Adobe.
>
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>Thomas Michanek, Technical Writer
>IAR Systems AB, Sweden: http://www.iar.com
>mailto:Thomas.Michanek@iar.se
>Tel: +46 18 167800, Fax: +46 18 167838
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
>"Abby Franquemont" <abby@eniac.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> In article <3AD6F703.6920E593@Square1.nl>,
>> Jeroen Dekker  <Jeroen@Square1.nl> wrote:
>> >Could it be that there's another urban legend in the making here? I
>> >mean, who did Abby talk to at Adobe?
>> 
>> Here's how it went down. I said to myself, "Hey, look, we've got
>> Distiller Server 3.x on our Solaris systems. There's a 4.x out, I
>> want to get it." So I started looking around on their web site for
>> a way to get it. After about 2 hours I couldn't find any way to
>> order anything from them that wasn't for Windows or Mac. So I got
>> to looking for phone numbers to call, figuring, somewhere there's
>> gotta be someone who can tell me what I've gotta do to upgrade my
>> old software to the newer one.
>> 
>> Finally, I find a list of contact numbers. Only one number says
>> anything at all about customer service for UNIX. That number is:
>> 800-272-3623. I found the number at the URL:
>> http://www.adobe.com/support/phonenumbers/main.html
>> and it appears to be pretty much their main customer service 
>> number. There's 900 line tech support, or flat fee tech support,
>> also listed -- but I didn't want tech support, I wanted to find 
>> out about upgrading software we already had to a newer version,
>> what it would cost, and how long it would take to get the goods,
>> plus ask a couple of questions about some other products I'd heard 
>> a little about.
>> 
>> After something like 20-30 minutes holding, I got through to a
>> woman (whose name I didn't get) and started asking my questions. 
>> "We no longer have any UNIX products," she said. I said that I knew
>> they weren't releasing, say, Acrobat 5 for UNIX, but what about
>> Distiller Server 4.x, which was listed in various places on their 
>> web site? 
>> 
>> "We no longer have any UNIX products." I explicitly asked, no products
>> are available to be purchased or upgraded to, at any price, under
>> any circumstances? She continued to state that was the case. She said
>> that they would provide service and support for any products people
>> had already been using, but wouldn't sell anything else. She said the
>> thing about "We no longer have any UNIX products" about a dozen times.
>> When I asked again, "So I can't upgrade my 3.x version of distiller 
>> server to the 4.x version no matter what I do?" she said, "You can
>> upgrade to Windows or Mac." When I said "What if I want the Solaris
>> version that's listed on your web site in several places?" she said,
>> "You're stuck with what you have now. But I can answer questions about
>> it for you."
>> 
>> I was, truly, stunned. Thus the subject line ("They're kidding, right?")
>> and me coming to a newsgroup where I know there's folks making heavy
>> use of an Adobe product for UNIX platforms.
>> 
>> [snip]
>> 
>> >With so many graphics being created on UNIX workstations, we'd be
>> >very surprised
>> >if they were dropping UNIX. Just think of all the engineering and 
>> >scientific
>> >industries using highly specialized UNIX applications to produce 
>> >designs and
>> >plots. These graphics need to be documented, published etc. (which is
>> >where we
>> >come in by the way). 
>> 
>> Likewise, my organization works with scientific, technical and medical
>> publishing.  I find the whole thing completely unbelievable.
>> 
>> >Why would Adobe turn its back on such a huge established
>> >market? Think also of web applications using UNIX servers to 
>> >publish database
>> >content online...
>> 
>> It's completely failing to make sense to me, but then, I can remember
>> it not making much sense to me some years back when I spent 2 weeks
>> trying to get ahold of anyone at Adobe and could only get a voice
>> mail message informing me the whole company was on a retreat for a
>> few weeks. Point being, I don't know if I'd stake much on Adobe only
>> doing stuff that makes sense to me.
>> 
>> >It's probably worth somebody (abby?) contacting someone in product
>> >management or
>> >product marketing at Adobe to get a clear directional statement.
>> 
>> I'd be more than happy to do so if I had any clue who to get ahold
>> of over there, and how. I'd be thrilled to find out the person I 
>> talked to was wrong. 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Abby Franquemont                             Systems Software Developer
>> abby@highwire.stanford.edu          HighWire Press, Stanford University
>
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