Re: Adobe speaks on Frame

[Richard Phillips <rgphill2@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Dear B. Mark:

I'll second Debbie Leipold's motion by saying it's good to have forthright
statements from the (if you'll pardon the expression) horse's mouth.

I'm a tech writer, have been a "Framehead" since '92 and love it very much.

What I'm about to say is probably nothing new to you, but no harm in saying it
anyway. I think you're in a Catch-22 situation. A main obstacle to expanding
your user base is that it isn't big enough now. The employment of tech writers
is, to a very large degree, on a contract or casual basis. (Bring one in when
you need a job done and then get rid of the greedy so-and-so at the earliest
possible moment. I'm not moaning; that's just the way it is in the 90s.) In
other words, a company has no way of predicting just what sort of tech writing
talent is going to be in the house --say-- six months or a year hence.

For that reason, they are reluctant to have books done in FrameMaker because,
should they wish to edit the stuff in the future, they cannot be certain of
there being a Framehead in the house. (They can, however, be pretty certain of
having a Word guy or a Word doll.) Thus, they are perfectly willing to forego
quality for the sake of the certainty of being able to do future edits.

How you intend to address this problem I don't know, but it certainly will call
for a highly creative approach.


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