Re: Adobe Certified Newsletter -- notice about FrameMaker

[steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I've watched discussions of this topic for a long time, and never chimed
in. I figure I'd better say something now, in case the subject never comes
up again.

I started using Frame on a Mac in 1997. I found it worked worked very
well. At the request of management at the time, the writing group I was in
decided to go to Frame on Windows 95. That was an adjustment, but not a
difficult one. There were a few things I missed from the Mac, but not
many. I re-mapped some keyboard shortcuts to compensate for some of the
changes. File management and stability on Windows 95 were the biggest
issues.

Once Windows 2000 came along, I found that file management and stability
on Windows were quite good. In my opinion, using Frame on my Mac vs. using
Frame on my Windows 2000 box was a wash. I could do either without missing
a beat.

Windows did provide some additional options not available on Mac, like
MIF2Go, more configurability, and the ability to handle the thousands of
HTML files we now generate from our Frame source. The current Mac version
couldn't offer those things.

As an FDK developer, I still develop for both the Windows and Mac
versions. I think the low single-digit market share for Mac seems like a
good guess. Based on my sales figures, there never were too many Mac Frame
users. (At least not too many who were will to buy FDK plug-ins.) If I
didn't still use the Mac version of Frame myself, and have the sunk cost
of hardware, the Frame software, and a compiler, I wouldn't spend the
money or effort to make the Frame plug-ins for the Mac. But, since I have
those things, I'll continue to do so.   :-)

My advice, for what it's worth, is don't rule out Frame on Windows without
first giving it a serious look. I wasn't thrilled with giving up my Mac
for daily work, but the move wasn't nearly as difficult as I expected.

Steve
steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.SiliconPrairieSoftware.com



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