Adobe was at the WritersUA conference this week in Long Beach, CA.
They were saying FM 8 is due this summer. They didn't have much to
say except we will should be happy with what it has. It looks like
they're trying to do some integration with FM, Captivate and Acrobat
in a manner similar to CS.
They, as with several other vendors had a demo session on Tuesday
after the seminars. I tried to find someone who attended but never
had any luck - I was FAR more interested in what MadCap had to show .
Perhaps someone on this list was there?
As for Blaze, I like it. After talking to Mike Hamilton (head of
MadCap) I got a more clear sense of what Blaze is. MadCap sees a huge
opportunity in the space between Word and FM. Basically, they see a
lot of TWers who have maxed out on Word and see its shortcomings who
would benefit from moving to something more like FM (TOC, cross ref,
variables, conditions, etc..) They they see a lot of FM users who do
not need everything in FM who want a new product with most of the
features in FM without some of the esoteric stuff. It appears
promising and I am certainly in that range of users they see.
I was going to keep this to myself but now, what the heck. On Monday
I was talking to one of the FM guys in their booth, I don't recall
for sure but I think it was RJ Jacquez. After getting an answer about
something, DITA support I think, I jokingly said, "So, if I told you
that we still have some Macs in our production and use FM on them
everyday, I suppose I should just turn around and walk away?" He
started talking about how FM runs quite nicely on Parallels and that
Adobe has several systems set up that way and he uses Macs himself.
Then he implied that there may be, at some point, a Mactel version of
FM. I didn't believe that one bit and I wanted to say "Yeah, sure."
In fact, I was taken aback that he was even talking about Parallels
and couldn't stick with him in the conversation. I'd like to see that
but really don't expect it.
Will.
--
Wil Gaffga
In Charge of All Things Documentation
Gibbs and Associates
Not Far Enough From L.A.
On Mar 20, 2007, at 4:51 AM, Andersen, Verner Engell VEA wrote:
Have you heard anything yet?
My Danish vendor told me (guessed) a couple of month ago that it
would be in March this year, but I don't trust this information
anylonger.
I am VERY curious about the new features and a bit impatient. The
only rumour I have heard is that Framemaker will support Unicode.
Maybe MadCap Software will be the first to launch their Blaze which
sounds very interesting, and probably will be a real competitor to
Framemaker.
Regards,
Verner Andersen
Technical Writer
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