RE: FrameMaker 2005 Chautauqua -- November 7-9, Raleigh NC USA

["Dauphin, William M." <william.dauphin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Rick:

>>This conference poses a "chicken or egg" quandary for many FrameMaker
users.
If FrameMaker has a viable future beyond 7.1, then it will be of interest to
me. But if the future of FrameMaker means incremental updates to the same
core code (like the 7.0 and 7.1 upgrades), attending a conference like this
would be a huge disappointment.<<

I understand the reservations some have about this event, but in my case, it
turns out that one of my job objectives for this year is to research the
future of FM and help my workgroup determine whether we need to start
creating an alternative workflow. In our current workflow, FM works pretty
well as-is: While a major reworking would no doubt provide benefits,
continuing support of, and patches/point upgrades to, the existing core
wouldn't disappoint us as much as it would you.

I actually take the mere existence of this event as a sign that FM's future
is brighter than rumor and speculation sometimes suggests. But maybe that's
just my inherently optimistic nature coming out.... <vbg>

>>For those of us that have been around for awhile, there are
not many new tricks for us to learn with the old dog.<<

I wasn't referring to new FM "tricks" -- I've been using FM since v 4.0 (my
first FM training was at a Frame Technologies location) and within the range
of things my group uses FM for, I feel pretty competent. But since the
software wouldn't magically stop working if Adobe stopped supporting it, one
possible outcome is that we'll continue to use FM as an unsupported
application for years... and that has implications worth exploring: Will
there still be a viable user community? Will third-party vendors continue to
support the product? And so on. As I said above, I *hope* these won't turn
out to be the key points of discussion at the conference... but if they do,
that won't be without value to me and my group. 

>>I am simply speculating about the speculation.<<

Aren't we all!

-Bill

** To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx **
** with "unsubscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body.   **