Re: Adobe Magazine and FM

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

NOTE: This is being posted only to the Free Framers list because my posting
privileges were permanently suspended on the BradFramers list because of
Adobe-critical postings such as this one. If anyone wants to post it to Brad
Framers, with or without attribution to me, you have my permission.
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If the product were slighted in Adobe Magazine but promoted/supported
elsewhere, we wouldn't have much to complain about, but the problem is
systemic, and its systemic because Frame does not fit tidily into Adobe's
business model, which, from a marketing standpoint in particular, is
consumer-product oriented.

WHEN FRAME TECHOLOGY HAD THE PRODUCT

1. Awareness of the product in the publishing industry steadily grew. The
marketing department and the sales force had increased product awareness as
one of its major goals. Each sales office had its own tech support staff to
help the salespeople in closing sales. Ads placed by Frame Technology in the
media were designed primarily to increase product awareness. Frame
Technology had a presence at virtually any trade show relating to the
publishing industry. The Frame of Reference magazine (and its precedessors)
was frequently mailed to all license holders. 

2. The Value-Added Reseller (VAR) program was robust, supplementing the
Frame sales force, and providing additional technical support capabilities.
There was also a vigorous effort to support aftermarket software vendors
whose products extended Frame's capabilities. A 2-1/2-inch-thick book
listing and describing 3rd-party products was published semi-annually, and
was also available on-line.

3. The company had an excellent training organization devoted exclusively to
Frame products. FrameMaker training classes, conducted at the home office
and elsewhere at freqwuent intervals, created a nucleus of competent Frame
professionals who spread the word about Frame's advantages and capabilities.

4. The tech support staff was one of the best. The email address,
comments@frame.com, allowed anyone with a sticky problem, a suspected bug,
or a proposed enhancement to get the company's attention, and a prompt,
helpful reply by a competent expert was virtually assured. Resolution of
problems via an exchange of emails was an efficient way to resolve most
issues, avoiding those interminable waits on a hotline. You usually didn't
need a support subscription to obtain these tech support services, and there
was no limit on receiving them.

5. The user manuals and on-line help were comprehensive and well-designed.
 
6. When a confirmed bug was logged, it was almost always fixed in the next
release.


SINCE ADOBE TOOK OVER

1. Product awareness is steadily diminishing, despite the virtual
disappearance of competing products (e.g., Interleaf). The opportunities to
exploit the vast deficiencies of the main competitor, MS-Word, are missed.

2. The sales and marketing efforts have been homogenized, and few of the
salespeople consider Frame products to be a major source of income. Sales
offices do not have tech support people who are knowledgeable about Frame
products. The VAR program is in shambles. When Adobe shows up at a trade
show, Frame products are invisible, and, when someone asks an Adobe rep in
the booth about FrameMaker, it's suggested that they ought to be using
PageMaker instead. There is zero promotion of Frame products in the media.

3. Adobe promotion and support for 3rd-party software products that enhance
Frame's capabilities is now nil. The last time I looked, there was no
comprehensive listing of 3rd-party enhancements to Frame on the Adobe website

4. The tech support for Frame products has been gutted. You can't even
report a bug unless it causes a crash, or you have a support contract.

5. Commencing with release 5.5, the first one that was entirely Adobe's
responsibility, quality assurance declined significantly. The product became
much less stable. Other than the buggy HTML capability and support for
double-byte languages, few significant new features were added, which
explains why it was not given a major new release number (6.0). Yet, new
bugs popped up in many features that were unmodified from the 5.1.x release,
and many bugs and some deficiencies that existed in 5.1.x remained. Although
some of these problems were fixed in V5.5.6, many of the bugs that first
emerged in 5.5.1 still remain, two years later. On top of that, the
comprehensiveness and quality of the user manuals and on-line help was gutted.

6. Frame 5.0 was originally released, as I recall, in late 1996 or early
1997. Release 6.0 is not expected until the spring or summer of 2000. That
means it will be 3-1/2 years between major releases, whereas when Frame
Technology had the product, a major release was produced about once every 18
months. 

7. The Frame in-house training organization was aboished, including the
development of high-quality training materials. Independent trainers and
train-yourself books have not filled the gap left by the discontinuance of
in-house training classes.

8. Frame of Reference was discontinued, and, as this thread has made
painfully clear, Frame products are ignored in Adobe Magazine. When it was
discontinued, the Adobe person in charge of Frame of Reference claimed that
the main reason for its discontinuance was that people wanted to get their
information from the Web, not from a printed magazine, and promised that
coverage of FrameMaker in Adobe magazine and on the Adobe website would be
expanded to fill the void left by the discontinuance of Frame of Reference.
One year later, those promises remain completely unfulfilled.

9. Go the Adobe web site. Click on almost any link and look for information
about Frame products. About 80% of those links provide information about
almost every Adobe product except FrameMaker.

CONCLUSIONS:

1. Frame Technology fully understood what it took to market and support a
complex, high-end, niche software product. Adobe does not, and probably
never will.

2. Having abolished the entire Frame Technology infrastructure that made
FrameMaker a rising star in the publishing industry, Adobe has effectively
pre-determined its demise. I continue to puzzle over whether this is a
deliberate srategy, or whether it's simply that Adobe just doesn't get it.
   

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     | Nullius in Verba |
     ====================
Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971 E-Mail: danemory@primenet.com
10044 Adams Ave. #208, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
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