Re: Yikes...no FrameMaker?

["Thomas Michanek" <thomas.michanek@xxxxxxxxx>]

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From: "Peter Lucas" <peterlucas@mediaone.net>
> This rumor about FrameMaker's demise has been around for AT LEAST 4 or 5
> years. It started when Adobe bought FrameMaker from Frame Inc. (help me
> Framers, when was that?).

That was back in 1995. The problem is that this rumor has at least once
been very close to becoming true. To quote an Adobe employee who has
worked with FrameMaker for 8 years:

> [...] in the big layoffs almost two years ago, [around August 1998]
> Adobe *killed* FrameMaker.  (Or rather, as soon as 5.5.6 came out that October,
> they intended to put it into "maintenance mode" for two years, intending to
> let it die in its sleep, as it were.)  A few months later, one of the big
> (really big) customers said, "Oh, no more FrameMaker?  The I guess we won't be
> buying anything more from Adobe ever again.  No Photoshop, no fonts, no
> PostScript, no anything."
> And that's why we have Frame 6.0 at all.  Be happy.  That sort of thing
> probably won't work twice.
> [...] To my knowledge, FrameMaker was
> profitable, but not profitable *enough*, vs. the cost of R&D
> [...] It wasn't bringing in $100 million a year,
> or some such, which was the bar it needed to hit.

This is my interpretation of the current situation:
Adobe has no interest in FrameMaker per se; if it doesn't make enough
profit in a short time span, the product is out. It doesn't matter how
good it is, how many customers are depending on it, or what potential it
has in a few years time or in markets too unsexy for Adobe's graphics-
oriented marketing.
In addition, FM may survive if a big customer pours money into FM
development, or "threatens" Adobe with not forthcoming purchases.

[ The basis for the above is, among other things, off-the-record
comments by people close to FM development in the past ]


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Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert
mailto:Thomas.Michanek@telia.com   (Sweden)
http://w1.133.telia.com/~u13304072/framers
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