A Little More about RoboHelp and Flare
April 9th, 2008I have enough to say to follow up on my previous post regarding RoboHelp vs. Flare that I thought a new post was in order. (If you read the other post, read the ensuing discussion.) One of the things that made me think about that topic in the first place was seeing Flare’s ad that suggested trading in your “legacy” software for the “new model,” Flare. RoboHelp was the only product mentioned by name in the promotion that offers a discount for switching. However, I’ll not assume that Mike Hamilton has anything to do with MadCap’s marketing, since he’s involved in the product management.
The podcast that Tom mentioned has Hamilton saying he wanted to disband some myths floating out on the Web about what happened between him and Macromedia. A brief summary: When Macromedia acquired eHelp, he expected RoboHelp to go to the next level, but they primarily wanted RoboDemo (now Captivate), another eHelp product. Macromedia seemed to make some counter-productive decisions: The RoboHelp team was working on RoboHelp X6 and only three months from release when Macromedia laid off half the team and planned to send RoboHelp to India. Then Macromedia decided to drop it completely, even though it was a very profitable product. When MadCap was founded, Hamilton and that team thought RoboHelp was dead. They wanted to provide something to help authors that was alive and running.
What I remember reading at the time this was going on, though, indicated that Hamilton was pretty skeptical of Adobe’s ability and commitment to carry RoboHelp forward. In the podcast, Hamilton mentions advantages of Flare that RoboHelp 7 also has. Macromedia clearly set RoboHelp back by shelving it, but Adobe has pushed it forward. He’s doing what he should when he promotes Flare, and perhaps it’s the fact that Flare’s history is so tied up with RoboHelp that it’s hard at this point to talk about the strengths of Flare without talking about RoboHelp.
At least in the podcast, Hamilton still seems to view RoboHelp as a limping technology, and MadCap’s ad appears to reflect that. Again, I’ve simply given my own observations of what happened. As my father says: Opinions are like noses—everybody’s got one. And if you’re like me, your opinions may be as strong as your nose, too.
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April 10th, 2008 at 11:39 am
I guess you haven’t seen the Kadov tags T shirts.
See them here
April 10th, 2008 at 11:39 am
my tags didn’t appear.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Actually, I did see those a while back, and I actually agree that kadov tags needed to die. They’ll go away only as fast as people use RoboHelp 7 or later versions instead of earlier versions. Upgrading a project to RH7 strips out kadov tags (finally…).
April 10th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Kadov Tags are out in Robohelp 7. Try the Robohelp 7 trail version, download available @ adobe site.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:48 am
I can say that when I contacted Adobe about a problem I was having, I spent lots of time in phone menu ****. Getting to talk to a live person was just about impossible.In contrast, MadCap’s leaders give you their email addresses. If I have a problem, or just want to say hi how’s the weather out there in beautiful La Jolla, I can do that via email or phone. And someone will get back to me in a reasonable amount of time. They are friendly and knowledgeable. That’s all I ask.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I agree that customer service is huge. I have heard through the RoboHelp forums that a number of people have a difficult time with Adobe tech support. I’ve had to deal with it only once, and it wasn’t for a technical problem that I couldn’t get around—I just had a question that I needed an answer to. I think that just like having quality documentation shows that you care about your users, having quality support in place does the same.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Regarding preference, I couldn’t agree more that ‘everyone has a nose’ fits the bill. Here’s my schnozz, poked into everyone’s business.
Here’s my take on tech support between the two companies in the past year:
http://charlesjeter.com/category/technical-support/
Regarding the capability to perform the best service for the customer (meaning the purchaser of the software) currently I think there’s no competition for MadCap. Then again, I know them. I don’t know who supports RoboHelp, but I used to. When they worked stateside and still understood the product, that is. >>Rock<> Paper <> Scissors <
April 14th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Wupps, I had to list the rock paper scissors with tags, didn’t I?
Rock - Service
Regarding the capability to perform the best service for the customer (meaning the purchaser of the software) currently I think there’s no competition for MadCap. Then again, I know them. I don’t know who supports RoboHelp, but I used to. When they worked stateside and still understood the product, that is.
Paper - resources
Regarding the capability to develop features through dollars spent in innovation - the jury is out with that. Adobe’s strategy is to offshore $200 million in development dollars to India. That gives you 5 to 7 times more bang for the buck - something like a billion dollars worth of development. Sort of like that Aliens movie where the Hicks character said to nuke the site from orbit in order to be sure.
Scissors - targeted smart bombing of development
MadCap’s strategy has a bit more finesse. According to my interviews with their staff, they have been focusing on making the features that improve the workflow for technical communication. Moral of the story: If you’ve got old code, you better have **** good support. If you’ve got new code and killer award winning support and innovation, it’s like a trifecta.