Frame vs Arbortext

[Sean Pollock]

   In the 1990s I used Epic at Thomson Corporation, a publisher, and I
   currently use it at UGS Corp., a manufacturing software company. You
   are correct when you say that Epic is better for major corporations.
   The cost per seat is much higher than Framemaker and even slight
   changes to DTD, CMS, or output systems within such corporations
   usually result in correcting XML code several times a year, at least
   in my experience. I wish we were using Frame, even though that
   wouldn't solve this problem. Although many writers who previously only
   used Word (ugh) but can't stand Epic are complaining at UGS, the
   company won't go to Frame because of the large number of projects and
   global writing groups here. It looks like they're leaning toward
   XMetal Pro as an editor.
   I interviewed at ArborText in Ann Arbor, MI, some time ago and it's a
   bizarre company. The Epic UI hasn't changed since the beginning and
   often results in typos because it is essentially non-WYSIWYG. While
   XML is supposed to separate coding and writing, Epic does the
   opposite. I'm comfortable with it because I've used it for so long,
   but many writers write in a text editor and then paste into Epic and
   format it as a second step, or refuse to use it altogether.
       ______________________________________________________________

     From:  Steve Rickaby <srickaby at wordmongers.demon.co.uk>
     To:  Diane Gaskill <dgcaller at earthlink.net>,
     framers at lists.frameusers.com
     Subject:  Re: Frame vs Arbortext
     Date:  Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:17:56 +0100
     >At 20:17 -0400 25/4/07, Diane Gaskill wrote:
     >
     > >Hello Frameratti,
     >
     >I like that... but shouldn't it be 'Framerati'? You might be
     thinking of 'Frameretti', i.e. little Framers ;-)
     >
     > >Remember the old days when we had debates and comparisons
     between the dreaded Word and Frame?  Well, now it seems that the
     new competitor is Arbortext.  I had my manager convinced to switch
     from Word to FM, even got the ok to build the templates (done),
     when along comes a VP in one of our offshore offices who thinks
     using Arbortext is better and convinces my manager to have us look
     at it too.
     >
     >I know only what I have read on this list, although it's a subject
     I keep an eye on. My suggestion would be to carefully calculate
     total cost of ownership of both options. From what I've heard,
     almost everything is a mega-cost-plus option in Arbortext. Someone
     who'd set up their own system at their own expenses a couple of
     years ago was posting here, and I got the impression that although
     you can get up and running with Epic at around the same cost as
     FrameMaker, just to *print* anything, for example, was a few
     thousand dollars more.
     >
     >These tools seem to be priced for major corporates, not for single
     writers or small authoring teams.
     >
     >--
     >Steve
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