Adobe Drops FrameMaker for Mac

[Kent Pribbernow]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/2100-1012-5177920.html?tag=nl' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2100-1012-5177920.html?tag=nl</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/framemaker_7_1_4.jpg" />"Adobe Systems announced on Tuesday that it plans to drop the Mac version of FrameMaker, the latest sign of eroding support for the Apple Computer operating system.<br /><br />The San Jose, Calif. company said it will stop selling the Mac edition of FrameMaker, a set of print and electronic publishing tools commonly used to create complex documents such as technical manuals, as of April 21. It will continue to support the Mac version for one year after that."<br /><br />Ouch! That's gotta hurt! :oops: Actually this news doesn't come as a surprise. FrameMaker as a whole has declined somewhat. As such, it makes little sense to develop software with such limited market share to an even smaller customer base.<br /><br />Apple is taking the risky path towards becoming a wholly vertically oriented company, offering a total package in both hardware and software, while stepping on the toes of its partners. In nearly every major software category, Apple has a product in direct competition with third party vendors. FinalCut Pro is one good example. Adobe discontinued the Mac version of Premiere partly due to rivalry with Apple. The same is true with the company's self branded retail store strategy, where Apple now competes head to head with Mac resellers. <br /> <br />Personally, I think this approach is suicidal in the long run. Apple makes fantastic products, but if this strategy drives away developers (both hardware and software) who will benefit? More importantly...who will want to buy a Mac without third party support? Can Apple succeed at being all things to all people, both professional and consumer? :?

[entropy1980]

I really think a everybody has made too much of the loss of Framemaker and Premiere, face it Premiere was slow and lowsy on a Mac, Final Cut suceeded because it is a superior product on the platform. As for Framemaker, well there are still rumors it will be phased out soon enough even on Windows (as Adobe has been increasing focus on InDesign).... is everyone going to run to the press asking if Adobe's support for Windows is waning? :?

[Jason Dunn]

I really think a everybody has made too much of...

You seriously don't see third party vendors pulling away from Apple because they don't want to compete with a company that's supposed to be their partner?

People wonder why Microsoft doesn't improve certain aspects of the OS, and it's largely because they don't want to destroy the community of developers that has made the platform successful. Ever wonder why the defrag tool is so weak? Because there are third party tools that do it better. Ever wonder why Microsoft has never improved Paint or bundled a basic image editing program? Because there are third party tools that do it better.

Apple is playing a dangerous game - now with Garageband, why would a developer like Sonic Foundry bother porting ACID over?

Answer me this (and I really don't know the answer to this): how many third party DVD burning tools are there like iDVD? How many third party image cataloging tools are there like iPhoto? How many third party music players/cataloging tools are there like iTunes? It's an honest question - if there are many, it disproves my theory, but if there are none or only a couple, I think that shows that developers are afraid to compete with the "home team", and over the long run, that can have some serious consequences.

On the other hand, some might say it's a brilliant strategy on Apple's part - if Apple can execute properly, perhaps they really can be a self-sustaining platform?

[entropy1980]

You seriously don't see third party vendors pulling away from Apple because they don't want to compete with a company that's supposed to be their partner?

Not when you have companies like Microsoft renewing their commitment to platform (at Macworld Microsoft said not only were they releasing Office 2004 for Mac but were hard at work on the next version)I think you will see vendors pulling some software that may not have a lot of users on Mac or where there is a superior program anyway offered by Apple or another vendor, in the big picture I think Apple is moving more towards taking Open Source projects and throwing their talent behind it which i think is mutually beneficial to both OSS and Apple. I think the paradigm of needing a 3rd party company to succeed is fading, it doesn't hurt to have 3rd party support but look at Linux it's growing with little or no 3rd party comapniescreating big apps for it (No Photoshop, no Office etc)

[entropy1980]

Apple is playing a dangerous game - now with Garageband, why would a developer like Sonic Foundry bother porting ACID over?



Have you used Garageband? There isn't really any comparison to Sonic Foundry's Acid it's far away superior, Garageband while nice is low-end and is crippled I'd say on purpose and is nowhere near targeted at the audience of Acid is targetting.

[James Fee]

I'd have to agree with those who say this is a non issue. Framemaker is old news and I personally have not used it in over 5 years. InDesign does everything I need to acomplish these days. The loss of Framemakers has nothing to do with Final Cut and other Apple apps and everything to do with lack of sales.

[foldedspace]

The strength of a Microsoft OS is that there are a large number of applications available. But this causes problems when your OS has to deal with a ton of apps, some written by lazy programmers, that don't always play well with others. The advantage of the Mac platform is the proprietary nature of their in-house apps that all work together well, like ITunes and the IPod. The disadvantage is what you stated, there are limited choices available for the user.

Not surprisingly, you have a hardcore, but much smaller, base of Mac users that favor stability over choice. It all depends on what's most important to you. I like choices.

[klinux]

Quick, someone throw in a Palm vs PPC comparison and let's declare this discussion over! :D

Nevertheless, as a dual-platform person, I have to say it's one thing if Apple's alternatives are bad but they leveraged their connection with OS to beat out other 3rd party alternatives. However, that Apple's alternatives (FCP, iTunes, etc) are goood!

[Crocuta]

Two things occur to me as I read the posts already here.


You seriously don't see third party vendors pulling away from Apple because they don't want to compete with a company that's supposed to be their partner?

Not when you have companies like Microsoft renewing their commitment to platform (at Macworld Microsoft said not only were they releasing Office 2004 for Mac but were hard at work on the next version)

Microsoft's support of the Apple platform isn't evidence on this issue one way or another. It was an important point in their favor during the anti-trust litigation and they're not about to abandon support for Apple now. (Bush won't be in the Whitehouse forever.) Let's also not forget that they have invested in Apple and therefore have a legitimate interest in the continuing existence of that platform.

The second thing that occurs to me... One of the arguments I'm reading here is that its okay to lose choices as long as what's left is 'good enough'. Well, that doesn't really work. Choice is a good thing in and of itself because each piece of software has different strengths and weaknesses and each user has different needs. You may think a particular product is good enough, or better, but that doesn't mean it's that way for me or anyone else. Choice costs you nothing, since you only buy the one you choose, but it returns great value because what you choose has a better chance of closely meeting your needs.

All that said, I don't think two packages withdrawn by one company is constitutes a trend. If third-party developers in general stop supporting Apple, then I agree that it's a bad thing for Apple in the long run. But Adobe's recent decisions on Premiere and Framemaker don't yet provide compelling evidence for the theory.

[entropy1980]

Microsoft's support of the Apple platform isn't evidence on this issue one way or another. It was an important point in their favor during the anti-trust litigation and they're not about to abandon support for Apple now. (Bush won't be in the Whitehouse forever.) Let's also not forget that they have invested in Apple and therefore have a legitimate interest in the continuing existence of that platform.


I don't know what else you would call the world's largest software vendor supporting the Mac platform , every company is in it for their own interest, and by making software for a particular platform is an investment in time, money, and man power.


The second thing that occurs to me... One of the arguments I'm reading here is that its okay to lose choices as long as what's left is 'good enough'. Well, that doesn't really work. Choice is a good thing in and of itself because each piece of software has different strengths and weaknesses and each user has different needs. You may think a particular product is good enough, or better, but that doesn't mean it's that way for me or anyone else. Choice costs you nothing, since you only buy the one you choose, but it returns great value because what you choose has a better chance of closely meeting your needs.



What is Apple supposed to do? Sit back and let Adobe put out crappy software (Premiere 6) and not give Adobe competition? Now that's anti-competitive! Adobe bailed because they didn't want to compete with Final Cut, they didn't bail because of the platform or they wouldn't have devoted the time to make Photoshop CS for Mac OS X they would have pulled out all together.

[Crocuta]

Jeremiah, you seem to have missed my point completely so I think I'll just let this drop. It sounds like you're looking for some sort of format-wars debate and that's not what my post was about. Peace.

[entropy1980]

Jeremiah, you seem to have missed my point completely so I think I'll just let this drop. It sounds like you're looking for some sort of format-wars debate and that's not what my post was about. Peace.
No believe me I am not I love my Windows box and use Linux everyday, just when you make a comment like "Microsoft's support of the Apple platform isn't evidence on this issue one way or another." is crazy They have said they are supporting the platform what more evidence do you need that companies aren't abandoning Apple? You seem to have missed my point. Long term is less software bad? Yes we both agree on that but I am simply stating that it is a fallacy that people simply aren't supporting OS X.

[Gary Sheynkman]

Adobe has to drop support. Apple is comming out with top notch products that are catered to MAC directly.

[Suhit Gupta]

Adobe has to drop support. Apple is comming out with top notch products that are catered to MAC directly.
Good point, though still a bit surprising.

Suhit