Mac Resurgence

Report · Apr 14, 2008

Now that we have a resurgence of the Mac platform, specifically Mac on the Intel architecture are we going to see a revival of FrameMaker for Mac. I still have yet to find a suitable product for doing structured documents on the Mac. And the PDF documents that I'm seeing coming out of Apple are still being produced on FrameMaker 6.x running on OS 9.

Having been out of the loop for awhile how is FrameMaker running on Vista?

Report · Apr 14, 2008

Yup, they're approaching a 3% market share internationally (http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/04/01/analyst-apples-us-consumer-market-share-now-21-percent/).

And heavily concentrated on US consumers, not companies.

If I were Adobe, I don't think I'd drop everything and rush to compete. I'd certainly do Linux before I'd do XOS.

Art

Report · Apr 15, 2008

I agree with Art,
With linux becoming an OS that more people are experimenting with, it would seem natural to progress to that platform, assuming the intention is to provide future new versions.

Report · Apr 16, 2008

Re: "With linux becoming an OS that more people are experimenting with..."

I'll point out that I'm already running FrameMaker (and Acrobat) under Ubuntu Linux.

Of course I first have to use the free VMware Server to run W2K Pro in a virtual machine, and then run FM and Acrobat under that. I then use Samba to share files between my Linux host and W2K across VMware's "LAN" connection...

For what it's worth, my first experiments were with running FrameMaker 7 under Wine. FrameMaker ran well enough, but Postscript fonts, and by extension a FrameMaker-to-Distiller workflow, didn't run well at all -- the workflow was finicky and fragile.

Having said that, I personally tend to believe that it's pointless to imagine that Adobe can or will support FrameMaker on non-Windows platforms, insofar as the company seems to be struggling to bring a reliable Windows version of the product into the twenty-first century. That doesn't especially bother me because I don't see the future belonging to proprietary binary file formats virtually imprisoned in proprietary, stand-alone authoring environments...

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley

Report · Apr 17, 2008

Sorry but I don't see the benefit of running FrameMaker on Windows under Linux or through Wine. Your still running Windows. I can run VM on an Intel Mac if that is what I want to get my FM fix. I can also use CrossOver Office to run FrameMake via Wine. What I'm talking about is a native application, without running Windows.

I do understand your other point. If they can't produce a reliable Windows version how can they produce a reliable version on another platform.

Its not the file format that I'm interested in. I don't care if the file it kicks out is ODF or PDF. What I'm interested in is how it manipulates structured documents. There are tons of word processors out there if what I want to do is write a document and then manually go through and apply styles to it. There are a ton of commercial and free page layout applications also

Sure I could create nice looking documents by hand if I wanted to do it in TeX, or if I wanted to write them by hand using XHTML/XML and applying a CSS. Then all I need is a good text editor. But again this defeats the purpose of a product like FrameMaker which keeps you from having to do all that by hand.

What I'm looking for is its ability to handle, manipulate, and build structured documents, which is the real strength of FrameMaker. Maybe your not familiar with its ability to do this and only use it as a glorified word processor.

As for the Mac market share comment that Art made. I never said that it was the dominate platform I just said that it was making a resurgence. I think that you should check more than one source for your statistics.

The Mac platform is continuing to see an upward growth in market share. For Q1 2008 it was estimated to be 6.6% of the US Market and 4.3% of the Global Market. IDC reported a 25.1% increase in the US from last quarter and Gartner estimates a 32.5%. I think that this is pretty impressive especially since they reported an overall US PC growth to only be 3.5%, and a overall world PC growth to be 14.6%. Here's a link to the article in InfoWorld (http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/17/Apple-takes-6.6-percent-US-PC-market_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/17/Apple-takes-6.6-percent-US-PC-market_1.html)

Is that a ton of Mac systems no, but it is showing an upward trend. The other thing that I think is interesting is place like IBM are now piloting programs to migrate users to Macs and putting in the infrastructure to support them in the work place. Another link to an article supporting this. (http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/04/16/ibm-launches-pilot-program-for-migrating-to-macs/)

I don't see these same trends happening on the desktop for Linux.

Report · Apr 18, 2008

Rob,

While its unlikely we will see a Mac version of Frame, write a letter to
the CEO. Get your 10 closest friends to write a letter and ask their 10
closest friends... They'll think it is a movement. (start the music to
Alice's Restaurant)

...Mike

Report · Apr 18, 2008

Mike,
I believe the last time they tried that, the Group W bench filled up...

Art

Report · Apr 18, 2008

I believe that is why we need to move the bench into the CEO's office.
When it gets too crowded we'll get some action.

...Mike

Report · Apr 18, 2008

I would heartily invite interested parties -- and uninterested, too -- to sign the online petition. A site that sort of rounds up what's out there to support Mac OS Frame is at . The "sign petition" link under FM4OSX takes you to the actual petition.

Periodically the folks wh...