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"Steve Shepard" <STEVES -at- YARDI -dot- com> wrote
> We develop property management and accounting software for large
property
> management companies. These clients manage millions of square feet of
office
> space, retail space, residential units, etc.
>
> Occasionally we get requests from clients for our docs to be provided to
> them in Word format so they can customize them for their particular
> workflow. I am resistant to this for several reasons:
<SNIP>
I think you should provide the docs to clients. And if they want to
butcher them, that is absolutely their right. They are licensing the
software from you, and the software includes the docs - therefore, they
have a license to the docs.
If a client asks for raw documentation, tell them you can provide it in
FrameMaker format and that its their problem from that point forward. This
may turn off some customers who want it in Word format. You need to make a
simple business decision - is it worth it to piss off a client and tell
them "sorry, Frame only" or are you going to spend the time to convert it
all to Word. Now you have discovered one of the consequences of using
Frame - the outside world wants Word and doesn't much care about the tools
you use.
Furthermore, I don't think this renders your copyright meaningless. If you
sell them a product with docs, it seems fair that they can tweak the docs
for their own use just as they will tweak the program for their own use.
If they sell that doc to somebody else and respresent it as their own
work, then you have a copyright issue.
As for offering a customization service...if your firm has a consulting
arm, this is where such a service would logically belong. If they don't,
then you're basically asking your firm to become a consulting firm.
Consulting is a fundamentally different business than software
development. Many software firms purposefully keep their consulting and
engineering divisions separate because of this. Therefore, before you
start gouging clients for specialized documentation services, your
executives need to decide if this is area of business they really want to
open up. Otherwise, partner up with a local tech writing consulting firm
and reccomend them if a client needs help customizing a doc.
Lastly, the customer is always right. If they want something and your
company truly cares about your customers, then you should do whatever is
reasonable to accommidate their requests.
Andrew Plato
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