Adobe FrameMaker End-of-Life for Macintosh Platform

[Paul Findon <pfindon@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Although the future of FrameMaker for Mac has been uncertain for some time,
having used FrameMaker every working day since 1991, this is shocking news -
it feels like a dear old friend is being put to rest.

My documentation company is 99% Mac. Adobe is suggesting that we cross-grade
to Windows, but we can't put two computers on every desk simply to run
FrameMaker. Never mind the cost, there's a decade of investment in Macs, our
Mac software, our Mac hardware, our Mac knowledge...

My initial knee-jerk reaction was that if Adobe are happy to drop us, then
we should drop Adobe. They suggest that we switch to Windows, but we could
just as easily keep the Mac and switch to Macromedia, etc. But then, we
still use Mac OS 9 and are perfectly happy with it. It does the job! In some
ways Adobe have made the decision for us - i.e., we don't need to upgrade to
Mac OS X, in fact, we don't have to upgrade or buy any new hardware or
software (Illustrator CS, Photoshop CS, etc), and there's plenty of
secondhand kit that will do the job. Problem solved, I guess. Certainly in
the short term.

I wonder what Apple will do for its documentation? I have some very recent
Apple manuals in PDF that were made with FrameMaker 6.0 and Acrobat 4.0,
running on Mac OS 9 perhaps?

According to Pamela Pfiffner's book, "Inside the Publishing Revolution - the
Adobe Story," it was John Warnock, Adobe cofounder and father of PostScript,
who very much wanted to buy FrameMaker in 1995. The other Adobe honchos were
still reeling after the purchase and integration of Aldus and were against
the idea. Because Warnock retired in 2001, although still on the Adobe
board, I guess this hasn't helped matters. Please come back John Warnock!

If, like me, you feel strongly about this, and you see cross-grading to
Windows as an unacceptable solution, I suggest that you contact Adobe
<http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/contact.html>, explaining how you feel
about the lack of FM for X, how it affects you and your business, and why
switching to Windows is not an option. That's what I'll be doing.

Please ask anyone else that you know who wants FM for X to do the same.

Paul Findon
InfoPage, Japan


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