Adobe at the STC

[Bernard Aschwanden]

Hi all:

Just thought I would let everyone on the list know that Adobe had a noticeable presence at the STC conference in Vegas. The biggest topics that they discussed included Acrobat 3D, RoboHelp and FrameMaker.

I think that the booth had around 10 people from Adobe and that included a lot of the FrameMaker crew. A lot of interest from attendees as well. I was at a booth directly across from them and can tell you that Adobe was busy. People like Karl Matthews, Micheal Hu, Vipal Bansal, RJ Jacquez and others took the time to meet with attendees, presenters and vendors.

Unofficially I would guess that the majority of people who visited that Adobe spoke with had a positive message. It seemed that Adobe was there, was positive and was actively getting information from people. I say "unofficially" because I didn't talk to all of them, but did meet several people who said that a lot of positive conversations happened.

They also seem to spend a lot of time talking to users informally at the tables throughout the conference, so I'm hoping that leads to some positive things down the road. It looks like they are getting a bit more serious about FrameMaker again which is nice to see. I suggest that you may want to see what conferences are coming up that have a solid presence by the FrameMaker team and it may give you a hint as to when to expect more news about Frame.

I suggest that because they had a lot of positive news about FrameMaker and about RoboHelp at this conference and seem to be getting the message out to people that Frame is back. If Adobe is marketing the product at these shows, then it's highly likely that there is also development work happening. Adobe has said that structured content is a growth area (mentioned at the Frame conference last year) and that development geared to that type of audience is happening. DITA is also a growth area (my experience, not a statement I recall from Adobe) so I would hope that this bodes well for the future.

I'm off to the AIIM conference next week and the Adobe CEO is a keynote. I'm not expecting to hear about Frame there as that conference is not geared to the tech writing world, but if I do I'll pass that on to the list as well.

Bernard




Bernard Aschwanden
Publishing Technologies Expert
Publishing Smarter

bernard at publishingsmarter.com 

www.publishingsmarter.com