Why Brad shouldn't be the list manager for Framers

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Brad is an Adobe Premium VAR (Value-Added Reseller), and derives
considerable (perhaps most) of his income from that activity, and the
reselling of related products. A VAR is a salesman. Salesmen are not in the
habit (publicly at least) of knocking the product they're selling. By
hosting the Framers list, Brad confronts a dilemma: Many (and as a salesman
he hopes more) of the people on his list are clients or potential clients.
When he talks to those people, his pitch must be positive. Yet, he is
hosting a list that has frank, and sometimes critical, comments about
FrameMaker and Adobe. That pains him. It also pains Adobe.

The standard Adobe VAR contract has a clause stating that Adobe can
terminate the contract on 30-days notice "without cause". You think Adobe
doesn't use that arbitrary action? The VAR I teamed with for 5 years (the
top-producing FrameMaker VAR in Southern California) had it done to him as
direct retailiation for postings I made to a very private and confidential
list that was hosted by Brad. There was substantial evidence that ALL of the
postings made on that very private list were relayed to someone at Adobe.
Guess who the prime suspect is.

Brad knows about that "without cause" clause in his VAR contract. If (as I
suspect) Adobe has complained to Brad about the harshness of some of the
Framers postings, what is Brad to do? If he ignores Adobe, he may be in
jeopardy. The logical thing is to make an example out of the harshest Adobe
critic (me). When you want to fire an employee who's not a "team player",
you issue written reprimands to that employee. When you get enough
reprimands, you fire him. The rest of the employees get the message. To
preserve their jobs (or posting privileges), they avoid repetition of that
conduct. Be a team player or else. Intimidation, pure and simple.

All but one of Brad's "reprimands" to me in the past year, threatening
suspension if I persisted, were in response to a posting of mine about
Adobe. The other came in response to my complaint to the list about vcard
and winmail.dat enclosures/attachments. The two postings of mine that were
not distributed on Sept 11, which prompted my off-list message to Brad
demanding an explanation, contained critical comments about Adobe. That's
when he fired me.

Conclusion: No one who is vulnerable to intimidation/retaliation from Adobe,
or whose job it is to carry the Adobe banner (such as a VAR), should be
allowed to host the Framers list.

Dan Emory
Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design
and Database Publishing Specialists

Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971
E-Mail: danemory@primenet.com
10044 Adams Ave. #208
Huntington Beach, CA 92646


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