My Position on Adobe and RoboHelp

adobe robohelp,corporate authenticity

I am not here to slam Adobe. I analyze based on raw data.

Adobe is doing the best they can with a product which was, according to the best information I could dig, killed by Macromedia.

After RoboHelp was resurrected, RJ Jacquez, former eHelper and former was brought back to chivvy it along into the hands of consumers. I was disappointed by what he and others had told me to expect with the RH6 release and therefore I started investigating what was up with their claims.

Then Adobe laid off its knowledge resources in mid-2007.

Then I couldn’t find any RoboHelp data in their SEC filings…

So that’s the raw data and the point where I started looking closely at the product and trying to determine whether it would exist in a few years or be killed off.

Update: In my soon to be released podcast, Mike Hamilton, VP of Product Management for MadCap Software disagrees with me, and expects RoboHelp to be in business for quite some time.

I speak and spoke disparagingly about RoboHelp because I feel that Adobe has not been completely honest about what occurred with RoboHelp and some blatant untruths or serious inaccuracies were discovered with their story this past year. MonkeyPi’s blog had some of the largest discoveries on it and I began posting there after reading what was being claimed and debated.

Initially when MadCap was created I was of the opinion ‘Congratulations guys, good luck’. After all, even if they had a better product or ended up having a better product, it’s sort of like when married friends of your split up: inevitably you end up choosing a side to hang out with.

Very hard to pick sides when it’s just business, therefore I didn’t. Hey, Adobe’s got products I use every day, and MadCap, well it was another competitor with a cool product, but when my clients asked me which one was going to be around in three years… I honestly didn’t know.

We are all entitled to our own opinion, however we are not all entitled to our own facts.

However things changed in the beginning of 2007. I felt Adobe was not truthful to their market.  After I started this blog in April 2007 I decided to start posting about what was going on with RoboHelp 6 from my own analysis of the available data.

It is still a point of contention that most of the facts that were raised, such as refuting the claim that RH6 was redesigned when those features were actually already documented as existing prior to the MACR layoff were never truly answered.

I’m all for being on the record with Adobe, as long as we’re looking at facts and not at hearsay. Since I could not find a way to keep them on the record when dealing with Investor relations (no email provided, just a phone number, and no internal Adobe employees wished to provide me with a contact) my analysis has stood on its own.

I believe strongly in Corporate Authenticity, in particular as described by the Cluetrain Manifesto. I try to provide raw data for my opinions, and base my opinions on how a company reacts to honest discussion and/or criticism.

It is my opinion that Marketing cannot get so carried away with the official story and spin that clear mistruths are labeled as fact. The market won’t tolerate it, and as Cluetrain says, the market has a voice through the internet, and is connected.

With all that said… prepare for the podcast series coming soon. Mike Hamilton gave me forty-five minutes of time, and I’m still doing the editing.

By the way, here’s a preview of the Mike Hamilton interview: Mike states in the interview that a reliable and third party polling over the past three cycles has shown Flare adoption the first year at virtually zero, the next at 16%, and the next at 25%. I’ve yet to verify those numbers, but that climb would show an aggressive chop of the HAT market by Flare.

Adobe is more than welcome to answer my questions should they desire. They’ve been posted on the HATT and I’ve blogged them previously.Those are the first ones I would tackle

I’m just averse to spin. Being in this space for so long, if I sense spin I get more direct than that Fox News guy Bill Oreilly.