Wow. What a wonderfully informative email. This one will go straight to the Director's inbox as well as my manager's for sure.
Thank you SO much, Max. Best Regards, Diane ========== -----Original Message----- >From: Maxwell Hoffmann <mhoffmann at translate.com> >Sent: May 10, 2007 9:01 AM >To: framers at lists.frameusers.com >Subject: RE: How many FM users are there? > > >Diane, > >When I left Frame Tech in 1994, internal metrics and intelligent speculation >put the total number of worldwide licenses at around 300K. With Wanock's >listing of 500K 5 years later, you could assume liberal growth of 40,000 >licenses per year which would put the probable current figure at an additional >280,000 licenses for a total of 780,000. If you cut the growth figure in half >to be conservative, the total number of licenses is probably 640,000. > >I think 650,000 total licenses would be a safe, conservative figure. > >FYI -- when I worked at Frame Tech and many of the licenses sold were still >UNIX (the PC was taking off by 1993), Frame estimated that only about 15% of >users actually registered their licenses. I don't know what the reg rate is >for Adobe, but that is one of the reasons that it is very challenging for a >vendor to have accurate figures on actual numbers of licenses in use. > >Regarding your earlier posting in late April (what are some of the advantages >that structured FrameMaker has over Arbortext) here are a few insights. I've >worked with a few customers whose management insisted on migration to >Arbortext, while much of production stayed in FrameMaker during the interim. >Even with experienced users who are "up" on XML structure, Arbortext takes far >longer than FrameMaker to design and test templates. Arbortext Architect (the >special license required to create style sheets) used to cost $15K. >FrameMaker's advantage is that every license is a "template creator" at no >additional cost. > >My company continued to design and support the structured application files in >FrameMaker for one account that had parallel Arbortext publishing and >development. Feedback we received is that it took ENLASO 4 business days to >develop significant format changes for XML publishing that took over 3.5 weeks >of testing and development in Arbortext. Naturally, some of this may be >dependent on the intelligence of expertise of the staff involved. But in >general I have observed that structured FrameMaker is much swifter than >Arbortext when it comes to making significant structural and formatting >changes to an application. > >The customer in question used very sophisticated page and PDF formatting that >went beyond most "streamline" formatting associated with XML applications. >(Lots of fancy tables, and lots of 3 level lists w/in tables.) > >Because Arbortext does not give a "literal" page representation, there are >often surprises at print/output time from target languages that cause text >expansion. One more reason that FrameMaker's embedded EDD with formatting >rules and "real" page display gives an advantage. > >The single biggest reason to stick with FrameMaker over Arbortext would be if >you have multilingual projects that occasionally require maintaining the same >page breaks as the source English. In Arbortext that would require an awful >lot of "PDF previews" to achieve. > >Another reason for sticking with structured FrameMaker is if your company or >division has a desire to "go all XML" corporate wide. FrameMaker has a much >lower learning curve than Arbortext, and is far easier for Word users to >master it than Arbortext. End users in Arbortext (who won't be involved in >format design, etc.) have a considerable amount of training to go through to >master the system which is less intuitive. If I had to distill it down to a >crude observation I would say that Arbortext was designed for engineers and >FrameMaker was designed for "everybody else." -- p.s. I went through 4 weeks >of Arbortext training a few years ago. Recent demos indicate that the >publishing paradigm is still similar to what I was trained on. > >I hope this helps. Feel free to contact me directly if you need more insights. > > > >Maxwell Hoffmann >Manager of Consulting & Training Solutions >ENLASO Corporation >T: 805 494 9571 * F: 805 435 1920 >E: mhoffmann at translate.com <mailto:mhoffmann at translate.com> ? ENLASO >Corporation provides quality enterprise language solutions and exceeds client >expectations through continuing research, development, and implementation of >effective localization processes and technologies. Visit: www.translate.com ><http://www.translate.com/> for more information or to subscribe to our >complimentary localization newsletter. >http://www.linkedin.com/in/maxwellhoffmann > >>Message: 1 >>Date: Tue, 8 May 2007 23:28:22 -0700 (GMT-07:00) >>From: Diane Gaskill <dgcaller at earthlink.net> >>Subject: How many FM users are there? >>To: framers at lists.frameusers.com >>Message-ID: >> <30813912.1178692103115.JavaMail.root at >> elwamui-huard.atl.sa.earthlink.net> >> >>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 >> >>Hi all, >> >>I know Adobe keeps all of their numbers a Big Secret, but I am creating a >>comparison spreadsheet in my research on FM vs AT and I need to have a >>general idea of how many FM seats have been installed. FM has been in use >>since the late 1980s and I would estimate at least 100K seats. If anyone on >>the list can provide an more accurate number, I'd really appreciate the >>information. Incidentally, PTC says they have 20K installed seats. >> >>Thanks, >> >>Diane
