RoboHelp and Flare: Room at the Table
April 8th, 2008A couple of years ago, I was using RoboHelp X5, a help authoring tool (HAT) that was several years old. In the software industry, letting your product go that long out of date is bad for business. RoboHelp still had a lot of users for a couple of reasons: Many had used RoboHelp and its predecessors for years, and there weren’t very many alternatives.
Macromedia had shelved RoboHelp and disbanded the product management team and RoboHelp developers in 2005. Mike Hamilton, the product manager, left about that same time. On the Internet, Hamilton criticized Macromedia, and by extension Adobe Systems, who had purchased Macromedia. He announced his joining a new company, MadCap Software, and that they would be releasing Flare, their flagship product and new HAT.
About the same time, Adobe announced plans to pick RoboHelp back up. I watched the back and forth on the Internet and, since I was already using RoboHelp, I wanted to see what Adobe would do with it. I tried out Flare, but it didn’t offer enough of an improvement that I wouldn’t be able to wait and see what Adobe came up with. (That was Flare version 1, so I’m sure MadCap has added many more features.) Adobe released RoboHelp 6, which was more of an update than a full release, and subsequently RoboHelp 7, which was a big step forward.
Marketing by Mudslinging
The thing that has bothered me the most about what has happened with RoboHelp and Flare is MadCap’s marketing approach, which caused “Flare” and “MadCap” to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Granted, Macromedia’s treatment of the original RoboHelp team was probably less than professional. However, Hamilton seemed to make it his quest to blow RoboHelp to smithereens. It wasn’t business—it was personal. If he could carry that little ring to Mount Doom and throw it in the fire, it would be worth everything that happened in between.
At least, that’s how he came across in some of the material I read.
Flare… I Am Your Father
The funny thing is that Flare owes a lot to RoboHelp. Hamilton was involved with RoboHelp for years, and if it weren’t for his team’s work on that software, there would most likely be no Flare and no MadCap Software. As much as Hamilton seems to hate RoboHelp, it’s Flare’s direct ancestor. Flare is the carrier of RoboHelp genetics.
<my personal opinion>Years later, it would seem time to let bygones be bygones, but Flare toots its horn by boasting about being the replacement for your “legacy” HAT. I’d like to see MadCap promote Flare as standing on its own merit rather than trying to stand on other software’s shoulders and thereby push them into the ground. That seems to be a politician’s approach rather than that of someone who is confident in his product’s capabilities. </my personal opinion>
I haven’t seen Adobe try to sell RoboHelp by knocking down Flare. They may understand that they don’t need to; RoboHelp stands on its own.
There’s room in a capitalistic market for both RoboHelp and Flare. The competition will drive their respective development teams to improve the functionality set of the products. RoboHelp does what one person needs, and Flare does what another needs. You can have bears riding bicycles and freaky clowns in the same circus.
I use RoboHelp, but that doesn’t mean that you need to. I’m not trying to sell it to anyone. If Flare works for you, use it. If RoboHelp works, use it. There’s room for both HATs at the dinner table—along with plenty of room for good manners.
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April 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Been reading for a while now. Just wanted to say good job.
Chris Tackett
April 8th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Thanks for the interesting entry. Our shop just went through a long evaluation process deciding whether to upgrade Robohelp or purchase Flare (we are long-time Robohelp users). During the process, I couldn’t help but note that it would have been a short process had Madcap Flare not been around to consider.
I also couldn’t help but notice that Robohelp 7 was an unusually robust upgrade from their last version, and I think it follows that the competition with MadCap has forced Adobe to sharpen their game. I agree that choice is good, and I look forward to years of fruitful competition between these two companies.
The only notes from Hamilton that I’ve seen are in his “Dear Help Authoring Professionals” letter on the MadCap Site, where he discusses his reasons for leaving Macromedia, which is pretty tame. Are there other online instances of this mudslinging?
I wouldn’t mind seeing companies go after each other a bit, even if it is within the seemingly staid field of technical communication. A bloody nose or two among competitors is to be expected. What I do mind is seeing technical communicators making tool choice a personal matter. It’s good to see you aren’t taking that road. Keep up the good work!
April 9th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Thanks, Scott. When I have more time later, I’ll have to see if I can hunt down what I saw. I remember in particular seeing a lengthy post in a discussion forum by Hamilton in which he seemed pretty upset and critical. Perhaps he didn’t intend to come across that way, but that’s one of the problems with writing—if you do it in the heat of the moment, the heightened emotional response in readers may last longer than the actualy words themselves. If I find anything still out there, I’ll post it here.
While some rivalry in the market is to be expected, and things have cooled, MadCap’s approach still seems anti-RoboHelp. Running a company with a climate of enmity toward another organization isn’t a productive thing. I hope that MadCap isn’t perpetuating a problem that is in the past. If I can get in touch with Hamilton himself for some comments, I’ll also post them.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Here’s the best explanation of the Flare/RoboHelp history. It’s a podcast. Mike Hamilton Gives Flare Demo to Suncoast Chapter.
As one who has used both RoboHelp and Flare extensively for numerous help projects, Flare has won me over hands down. This is because I need to single source my deliverables. Flare is more robust, and you don’t have to tweak the output to Word like you do with RoboHelp.
There are some things about Flare that I dislike (see my post, “45 Things I Love About Flare, 31 Things I Hate”), but in general it it much more innovative than RoboHelp.
April 9th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
A couple of references to Mike Hamilton’s responses to Adobe were in forum posts that are apparently no longer available. I did find this page, in which some excerpts from an interview with Adobe’s Michael Hu were addressed by Hamilton. Hu did take a little shot at MadCap. Hamilton’s complete responses don’t seem to be out there anymore, but I remember some negativity. Perhaps Hamilton felt some antagonism or belittlement from Adobe and was simply giving a knee-jerk reaction. I recall thinking something along the lines of, “Wow, he’s really upset.” That impression has obviously stayed with me until this discussion.
The letter from Hamilton that Scott mentioned is more respectfully toned than the other things I remember reading. (By the way, I corrected my post to reflect his mentioning that he left Macromedia/Adobe voluntarily.)
Still, here’s to the advantages of blogging. The discussion has helped me see more to the situation. To avoid posting a more lengthy comment here, I’ve addressed this in another post.
April 13th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Talking about ancestors of Flare and Robohelp…structured authoring tools
although robohelp and Flare have origins that fall more into the realm of HATT.
The ancestors of FrameMaker, structured authoring, and content reuse in robohelp and flare, go way back into the days
Ventura Publisher, Charles F. Goldfarb,
troff, Donald Knuth, and Scribe (markup language)
http://www.techwr-l.com/archives/0804/techwhirl-0804-00195.html
a brilliant post on the history of structured authoring tools