Every coin has two sides WAS: Part 1: Why I am Dropping TCS and FrameMaker

[Joseph Lorenzini]

Hi Diane,

Thank you for your constructive feedback. I in fact have considered the 
points you raised. I just didn't think it feasible to cover every aspect of 
my decision making process in my original post. I'll go ahead and address 
them now.

*1.  No automation.*

I am actually intimately familiar with FM automation and have several 
plugins, some of which i have written myself. I actually think the model 
where "FM has a deficiency in functionality and usability therefore get a 
custom plugin" is fraught with risk and ongoing costs that many people do 
not consider. However, I think there's a larger problem with how you framed 
this issue. I am not arguing that doing things manually is the superior way 
of doing things. Clearly, automation is what should happen here. The 
question isn't if but how.  If you take FrameMaker as a given, then I 
absolutely agree that a plugin for automation would be a slam dunk case in 
terms of ROI. However, I am looking at this more broadly. 

I am asking the following questions: 


   - What is the best tool for doing the publication automation that I 
   need? 
   - What is the most cost effective way to do this automation?

Flare's license cost is identical to FrameMaker's. Flare already does all 
of the automation I need out of the box. It is fully scriptable and can be 
integrated into a build process and if there's a problem with the 
functionality I get to raise it to the vendor instead of tracking down some 
contractor. By definition, FM+plugins is going to be more expensive.  On 
top of this, why would I want to automate the generation of PDFs in 
FrameMaker, when PDF output is not needed?
*2. FM is definitely not dying
*I don't think I ever claimed that FrameMaker was "dying" in the sense that 
everyone would stop using it and that Adobe would end of life the product. 
If I did, then that was not my intention and I apologize for the confusion. 
 I do expect that its market share is going to shrink more and more over 
time as people stop using PDF as one of their primary outputs or at all. I 
am sure FM will survive on for many years to come due to the number of 
legacy installs and organizational inertia. I simply don't understand what 
the use case for FM is if you don't care about producing PDFs. And yes, I 
know people predict disruptive change that never happens but there was a 
time that everyone "knew" that you had to product printed 
documentation....until you didn't. I expect the same is going to happen 
with PDFs though I could certainly be wrong. 

*3. Adobe is not going away.*
As a company, I am sure that's true. I don't recall making any comments on 
whether the company would survive or not. I directed my criticisms towards 
their product suite. 
 
*4. Adobe Support
*I agree that many places have horrible customer support. But not all. I'll 
get this into my next post but Madcap Flare's customer support is hands 
down phenomenal. I can't say good enough things about them. They are so 
amazing that I was literally in shock dealing with "tier 1" agents that 
actually knew what they were doing and were actually investing in help me 
with my problem. And oh dear lord, you actually call a number, press a 
single button and you actually start talking to a human being. I never 
imagined!! 
 
*5. Information hard to find.*
*
*
*"*This is like blaming the gun instead of the shooter.  Sorry, but it's 
just not valid. The problem here is the design of the documentation, not 
the tools."

On this one, I agree and I disagree.  I agree that the design of the 
documentation needs improvement. I disagree that the tool is irrelevant in 
implementing that redesign. In fact, that's one of the most important 
reasons I switched tools!!  I am in fact a subject matter expert on the 
product, I actually worked part time in customer support, and I am 
considered one of the most knowledgeable people in the entire org about the 
overall system architecture. Furthermore, I know the redesign I want to 
achieve.

Having a good design matters a lot, but whether a tool is good for 
implementing that design is an empirical question that must be 
investigated. Not every problem out there is a nail that should be beaten 
with a FrameMaker hammer.  FM is a tool. It has strengths and weaknesses. 
Its biggest strength is making it easy to author content that can be easily 
outputted into high quality PDFs. On the other hand, I do not think FM is 
the most cost effective and best tool for doing topic based authoring in a 
XML environment in which the final output is HTML5 help. In fact, unless 
generating PDF output is one of your primary goals, then I don't understand 
why you would use FM.
 
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