Frame Light, what's the potential market?

[Writer]

On 22/02/2011 7:19 PM, Mike Wickham wrote:
 >
 >> I think it was a mistake for FrameMaker 10 not to include ePub 
output directly from FrameMaker.  I can output an ePub straight from 
InDesign or straight from Apple Pages, but I need the full TCS3 to 
output ePub through RoboHelp.
 >>
 > When I saw the announcement of RJ Jacquez' webinar on producing EPUB, 
I was excited. That's a feature I could use. Then I watched the webinar 
and saw that RoboHelp would also be required, and was disappointed. The 
logic, according to RJ, was that Adobe chose to put Web output into 
RoboHelp and print output into FM. But, sheesh. Those of us who create 
print books have no need for any of the help or Web features in 
RoboHelp, but it would be nice to port a book easily into EPUB. There's 
no way I'm going to spend the $1300 to upgrade to TCS3 just for that 
capability, though.
 >
 > So maybe a RoboHelp Extra Lite is what I want-- EPUB only. Or, maybe 
now that ExtendScript is hooked into FM, some third party will create a 
reasonably priced script that would do the conversion.

Mike, I think that those are profound and interesting statements. The 
same thought has occurred to me regarding other software that I use. 
Wouldn't it be beneficial to the user AND the vendor if we could buy 
just the outputs that we need at a per-output-price? Wouldn't it mean 
more potential sales for the vendor? As you suggested (re: "reasonally 
priced script"), it seems to me that if the current vendors won't do it, 
someone else will.

Nadine