RE: FrameMaker's Future

["Steve Whitlatch" <swhitlat@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> As the www.adobeindia.com (which is probably
> required occasional
> monitoring for FM groupies) site explains:
>
> "The India team has complete ownership for the
> PageMaker and
> FrameMaker products and hence handles all phases
> of the new feature
> releases starting from conceptualizing,
> designing, delivering and
> testing for all current and subsequent releases.
>
> In the recent FrameMaker release, exciting new
> features like the
> conditional text and cross referencing in XML
> known as round tripping
> has been introduced - all of it owned by the India team."

When working with DocBook XML -- without a custom client
that is much more capable than the one ships with the
DocBook Starter Kit (same code for docbook.dll in both 7.0
and 7.1) -- I found both FrameMaker's round-tripping and
xref features to rate between bad and very bad; however, it
is possible that the difficulties I encountered are
attributable to my lack of experience with structured
FrameMaker. A highly-qualified FrameMaker expert/consultant
told me that the code for the DocBook Starter Kit (import.c,
export.c) has not been upgraded or changed since FrameMaker
6 when it was specific to just SGML (no XML support).

I make available a downloadable structured FrameMaker 7.0
DocBook XML project that details what I found/experienced.
Any corrections to the project or the README are
appreciated. Buried in the README you can find the details
of my experience and support for my opinions.

A quick link to the README:

http://www.getnet.net/~swhitlat/DocBook/Frame_Project_Readme
.html

To download the project:

http://www.getnet.net/~swhitlat/DocBook/docbook_section.html

Or enter through:

http://www.getnet.net/~swhitlat

and follow the DocBook link.

Steve Whitlatch






>
> Another interesting footnote to FM's off shoring
> is that the
> milestones section for the Indian site doesn't
> show anything happening
> in 2004... which is probably just an oversight;
> updating a page more
> than once every couple years is a heavy burden.
> But it'd be nice to
> know something happened there last year.
>
> Cheers,
> Art
>
>
>
> On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 10:36:44 -0800 (PST), Daniel Emory
> <danemory7224@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > I've noticed a number of threads discussing
> > FrameMaker's future. Here is my take on it.
> > Those who think they can somehow revive FrameMaker
> > support for the Mac are living in a dreamworld, which
> > should become apparent after they face the realities
> > discussed below.
> >
> > There are a number of those realities which revolve
> > primarily around the absolute necessity, for a product
> > like FrameMaker, to rely heavily on successfully
> > capturing a large bloc of large license holders. To
> > understand the importance of the big licenses holders
> > requires a review of FrameMaker's history:
> >
> > 1. FrameMaker was created by FrameTechnology in the
> > mid-to-late 1980s, thus the core code is nearly 20
> > years old. I've been using it since 1990
> >
> > 2. By December, 1995, FrameMaker had reached its
> > zenith with the initial release of FrameMaker+SGML and
> > FrameMaker Version 5.0. At that point, Frame's client
> > base consisted mainly of large companies, many of
> > which owned thousands of licenses. Despite the massive
> > scope of the SGML capability, release 5.0 was
> > amazingly stable and bug-and memory-leak-free, proving
> > the elegance and adaptability of the original core
> > code
> >
> > 3. Shortly before the release of Version 5.0,
> > FrameTechnology was purchased by Adobe. Within a year
> > or so, Adobe had pretty much dismantled the Frame
> > Technology organization, eliminated the training and
> > customer support groups, and lost most of the Frame
> > Technology programmers.
> >
> > 4. The first release by Adobe was version 5.5, whose
> > main purpose was a failed attempt to capture the Asian
> > market by adding double-byte, Rubi and related
> > features, plus a half-assed HTML converter. The
> > release had more bugs than the movie Starship
> > Troopers. It took four releases, culminating with
> > release 5.5.6, to make it once again (relatively)
> > bug-free and stable. The memory leak problem, however,
> > had grown significantly. .
> >
> > 5. Although Adobe had declared ambitions in the late
> > 90's to carry out a major revamp and modularization of
> > the FrameMaker code, nothing ever came of it.
> >
> > 6. As a result of the failure to modernize and
> > modularize the code, the next two releases, 6 and 7,
> > had relatively modest added features, primarily in the
> > structured document realm. Although these releases
> > were relatively stable, the memory leak problem
> > continued to grow---one of many symptoms that the code
> > had become intractable. This intractability of the
> > code has, quite obviously been the main reason why
> > urgently needed new features to fully support XML
> > (e.g., schema and Unicode support) have failed to
> > materialize. And the ultimate killer App feature, the
> > ability to convert an EDD's format rules into XSL
> > instances is, apparently, unachievable.
> >
> > 7. During the era when Frame Technology owned
> > FrameMaker, the company's secret to success was to
> > cater to the big companies which owned the vast
> > majority of the licenses. Those large companies
> > demanded the following things:
> >
> > - The power to have a major influence on what new
> > features were to be added to each new major release.
> >
> > - Heavy participation in Beta testing of each new
> > release.
> >
> > - Paid Maintenance contracts for each license in
> > return for free upgrades and superior (and free)
> > customer support via email and phone. In effect, these
> > maintenance contracts provided a huge portion of
> > advance funding needed for the development of each new
> > release.
> >
> > - A superior customer training organization which
> > provided both training and high-quality training
> > materials, giving those companies the option to
> > purchase the training materials or to purchase
> > training by Frame Technology trainers, both on-site
> > and at Frame Technology's headquarters in San Jose.
> >
> > - Superior User Manuals which provided users with the
> > in-depth details of the product
> >
> > Wihin a year or two after Adobe bought Frame
> > Technology, Adobe had abandoned and dismantled this
> > entire support structure, and had radically degraded
> > the usefulness of the User Manual.
> >
> > This extreme degradation in the entire support
> > structure for FrameMaker explains, more than anything
> > else, the rapid growth in the number of subscribers to
> > the Framer's Lists. That list has become the
> > substitute for what existed before Adobe took over the
> > product.
> >
> > 8. The combination of what is described in items 6 and
> > 7 above began to produce a growing abandonment of
> > FrameMaker by the big license holders, which has now
> > reached a torrent. This loss of the big license
> > holders was the final blow to FrameMaker's future,
> > among other reasons because the main source of
> > advanced funding of new release development costs has
> > been evaporated.
> >
> > 9. The advent of high-end XML/Database Content
> > Management Systems requires heavy integration of the
> > authoring software into that new environment. Adobe
> > has done nothing to adapt Framemaker to that
> > environment. Arbortext, with its Epic Editor product
> > has not made that mistake. It has all the bells,
> > whistles and add-ons which allow it to be fully
> > integrated into a high-end CMS environment. FrameMaker
> > has lost its chance to become the authoring system of
> > choice in this environment, which means it can never
> > again become the pre-eminent choice of large companies
> > requiring thousands of licenses.
> >
> > 10. The saddest thing about all this is that a vast
> > array of talented aftermarket developers has evolved,
> > who produce an incredible array of enhancements to
> > FrameMaker capabilities. During Frame Technology's
> > reign, it produced a thick annual guide to all of the
> > products and services available through those third
> > parties which was offered to all license holders.
> > Inexplicably, Adobe immediatley abandoned that
> > marvelous sales tool, which Frame Technology
> > salespeople would invariably use as part of their
> > sales pitch to potential customers..
> >
> > =====
> > Dan Emory & Associates
> > FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design &
> Database Publishing
> > DW Emory <danemory7224@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >
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> >
>
>
> --
> Art Campbell
>
> art.campbell@xxxxxxxxx
>     "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this
> world beats a '52 Vincent
>                  and a redheaded girl." --
> Richard Thompson
>                              No disclaimers apply.
>                                  DoD 358
>
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