Re: The case against M$ Word

Subject: Re: The case against M$ Word
From: Gary Schnabl <gSchnabl -at- LivernoisYards -dot- com>
To: "Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:53:10 -0400

Combs, Richard wrote:
> Gary Schnabl wrote:
>
>
>> Duh! Seek out a reputable eBay "merchant" and not a used-camel dealer.
>> There are a number there on eBay who pick up and resell unregistered,
>> legal copies of proprietary software.
>>
>
> Adobe's full retail price for FM 8 is $899. A quick Ebay search
> (http://tinyurl.com/5fjbsf) revealed that the reputable merchants are
> selling unused copies of FM 7.0 (3 versions old) for $575 - $750. That
> doesn't strike me as particularly cheap. If you intend to upgrade from
> that, it makes no sense at all.
>
> Oddly, somebody's selling _upgrades_ to FM 8 for $342.78, above Adobe's
> list price of $299.
>
> To be fair, you can get a "used" copy of FM 5.5 for UNIX for $199. And
> the minimum bid for FM 3 for the NeXT is just $7.99. :-)
>
> Anyway, this discussion has been about making a case against MS Word to
> one's superiors. So I assumed we were discussing corporate purchases for
> technical writing staff, not personal purchases for home or free-lance
> use. I doubt that too many corporations bigger than micro size would buy
> their software from Ebay.
>
> Richard
>

It's a moot case for me about acquiring FrameMaker because I received a
copy of FM 7 gratis through my employment as a technical editor with a
semiconductor manufacturer over three years ago. Otherwise, I would have
purchased my own version way before now. eBay or not. I typically find
my legal software on eBay discounted by more than 50% from the "street"
price. Occasionally, sellers need the money (any money) badly enough.

I use FM for creating the printer's PDF for all medium to large books
whether if their subdocuments were authored with Word or not. Conversion
from Word is brain-dead simple. And I almost never use any direct
formatting (manual overriding of Word styles).

And Word 2007 is far better than Word 2003 for the purposes of technical
writing or editing. Its typesetting algorithms are still better than
what Word 2007 employs, but not near those what InDesign can do. I see
few problems in using Word 2007, though, especially if styles are used
everywhere in the documents. The final editor(s) could use the DTP
packages for typesetting, and that part need not concern other writers
or editors that use Word 2007.

As to my believing that FrameMaker is nearing EOL: Adobe.com does not
list FrameMaker among its 14 top-tier products on its home page.
InDesign is among the top 14... To get to FrameMaker via linking from
Adobe's home page, one must click on the More Products hyperlink. The
next page then lists 12 major products, of which none is FrameMaker. To
finally get to FrameMaker 8, one must click on a More Products hyperlink
a second time and select FrameMaker 8 via a drop-down menu.

Adobe will continue to include more bug fixes from FM 8 (FM 7.1, and 7.2
to a smaller extent, was essentially a bug fix that needed to be paid
for...) and incorporate enough new "features" in order to justify or
entice its users to pay for an upgrade or two. After a passage of time,
there will few reasons to offer both InDesign and FrameMaker as separate
standalone apps because Adobe will place a higher priority on InDesign
due to competition. Ergo, InDesign CSx will coopt FrameMaker's remaining
functions and users, and FrameMaker will be dropped.

Gary
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Follow-Ups:

References:
The case against M$ Word: From: Chris Morton
Re: The case against M$ Word: From: quills
Re: The case against M$ Word: From: Gary Schnabl
RE: The case against M$ Word: From: Combs, Richard
Re: The case against M$ Word: From: Gary Schnabl
RE: The case against M$ Word: From: Combs, Richard

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