FrameMaker's 25th Anniversary

[Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain@aeris.net)]

Oh, yes, Interleaf was definitely a good product at the time.

For us, it was just:

	(a) the cost was much higher ... as I recall, Interleaf did not have a floating license concept, only fixed per-system licenses,
	(b) had more features than we really needed in our Engineering team (like way better color support as I recall - our team did not need color at all),
	(c) it "took over" the SunOS system by running its *own* windowing platform - from the normal startup login, you started the Interleaf software, not Sunview!

So, if you ran Interleaf, you could not do anything else - no other window could be opened for a SunOS shell, etc.

Us engineers balked at those windowing limitations more than anything else. We were doing other work ... and our documentation (specs, requirements, tool documentation, etc.) work was secondary. The server-based FrameMaker floating licenses, running in SunView, made far more sense for us.

This is *unlike* the Tech Pubs folks in marketing ... who were writing data-sheets, company collateral, ads, etc! :) Those folks used and preferred Interleaf at the time - for darn good reasons.

Z

-----Original Message-----
From: Combs, Richard [mailto:richard.combs at Polycom.com] 
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 12:26 PM
To: Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain at aeris.net); FrameUsers List
Subject: RE: FrameMaker's 25th Anniversary

Syed Zaeem Hosain wrote:
 
> I started using FrameMaker on a monochrome Sun 3/50 back in 1988 and 
> loved it! Our engineering team chose it over Interleaf (which is what 
> the tech pubs folks were using), because of the slightly lower cost 
> and the fact that it was a cleaner fit with Sun's windowing software.

I compared FM 1.x to Interleaf that same year (likewise on the Sun 3/50). I really liked it and thought it had great promise, but I advised my client to go with Interleaf (and worked on that for the next several years). FM had great promise, but was still a relatively young program lacking many key features. 

I didn't return to FM until 95 or 96 (v5.1, I believe), by which time it was far more mature. With a few interruptions when working for clients wedded to Word, I've been a happy FM user ever since. 


Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
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