Re: InDesign and Frame

[Tom Regner <tom_regner@xxxxxxx>]

(A judiciously edited) Lindsey Thomas Martin wrote:

> (2) I suspect that, rightly or wrongly, Adobe is marketing FM as a
> heavy-duty product and using its in-house consultants and its VARs to move
> the product. When is the last time you saw a bulldozer advertised on
> prime-time television?

While on the surface your comment seems almost flippant,
you make a salient point.  FrameMaker is more of a *trade*
product as opposed to MS Word, which is offered to the
general public as an "everyperson" solution.

When you think about it, you might realize that products
designed and built for specific trades (and your bulldozer
isn't a half-bad example) are not advertised to mass
audiences because, frankly, they're not interested.

Unlike Photoshop (for example), which can be used by
novices and experts alike both for high-end professional
graphics manipulation and for novices wanting to play
with photos to put the head of a dog on a fish for fun,
FrameMaker is really for serious-minded documentation
professionals.  It is the rare person who fines FrameMaker
"entertaining" in the same way as Photoshop, and it is
far too cumbersome a product for home users or even
small offices who want word processing to dash off letters
and monthly newsletters, etc.   In this sense, FrameMaker
is to bulldozer what Word is to refrigerator.  Quite different
products for quite different markets.

I use FrameMaker to write multi-chapter, heavily-indexed
books.  When I want to write my mom a letter, I don't open
FrameMaker. I fire up a small word processing program
at home because it is quick, simple, and a better tool for
the job.  I also don't commute in a bulldozer.   :o)

Best,

-- Tom


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