Re: Single Sourcing Documents ( Was: Documentation Studio)

[byfield -at- DIRECT -dot- CA]

eric -at- engagenet -dot- com wrote:

>I can tell _someone_ hasn't worked in the graphic design industry....
><g!>

Grins aside, it is true that Adobe's shift to documentation is newer
than its involvement in graphic design.

>I'm not surprised to hear about cradle-to-grave solutions coming out of
>Adobe. They already have quite a lot going for them already, what with
>FrameMaker, Acrobat, PageMaker, etc. They have paper and internet stuff
>covered.

Cradle-to-grave indeed. That's Adobe's openly declared strategy,
and the company seems well on the way to accomplishing it. By
targeting the producers, Adobe can also get the end-users, which
seems a clever strategy to me.

Yet the thought of this monopoly in the making doesn't disturb me
nearly as much as Microsoft's. Maybe the reason is that, unlike
Microsoft's, Adobe's products tend to be well-designed (although
not bugless, by any means), and generally to deliver the performance
they promise. I've yet to be disappointed by an Adobe font, and
FrameMaker and FrameMaker+ SGML strike me as very slick products.
About the only Adobe product that I dislike at all is Acrobat,
which seems slow and a little cumbersome for what it is--not at all
the ideal cross-platform standard, so far as I'm concerned.

----------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Byfield (byfield -at- direct -dot- ca)
Burnaby, BC, Canada
(604) 421-7189