>Closing the Book on Visual Page
>-------------------------------
>  by Adam C. Engst <[log in to unmask]>
>
>  Normally in TidBITS we try to be calm and well-reasoned, but every
>  now and then, we hear about a move so stupid that it makes our
>  stomachs hurt. That's happened recently at Symantec (motto: "If
>  you can't beat the competition, buy them and kill their product")
>  with their highly regarded HTML authoring tool Visual Page. We've
>  written about Visual Page a number of times in TidBITS, and it's
>  fared well in all our comparisons of basic HTML authoring tools.
>
><http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbtxt=Symantec%20Visual%20Page>
>
>  Visual Page was a perfect middle ground between a text-based HTML
>  editor like BBEdit and the high-end as represented by GoLive
>  CyberStudio, Macromedia Dreamweaver, or NetObjects Fusion. The
>  fact is, most people would probably prefer not to learn the
>  details of HTML, nor do most people need the burgeoning feature
>  sets offered by high-end programs.
>
>  Add to this the fact that Adobe seems to be ignoring the Mac with
>  PageMill 3.0 (currently available only for Windows) and that Home
>  Page has disappeared into the gaping maw of FileMaker, and you
>  come up with a situation where Symantec was, as it has been said,
>  faced with insurmountable opportunities.
>
>  When faced with such a loss of competition, would you immediately
>  decide to refrain from additional Macintosh development? I didn't
>  think so. However, the official word, as relayed on Symantec's
>  support newsgroup by Scott Morrison, Lead Technician for Internet
>  Tools Technical Support, is "We have no plans for any future
>  upgrades to this product." Of course, the Windows version of
>  Visual Page 2.0 just shipped, where it will have to do battle with
>  Microsoft FrontPage, which is bundled with everything short of
>  breakfast cereal.
>
>  Scott Morrison, by the way, does deserve a golden apple for his
>  work in Symantec's newsgroups. He was unfailingly honest about the
>  situation, managed to remain polite while replying to irate Visual
>  Page fans, and even offered the professional courtesy of
>  recommending that people check out GoLive CyberStudio, which now
>  has a Personal Edition that Visual Page owners can pick up for
>  free (see "GoLive CyberStudio Gets Personal" in TidBITS-433_).
>
><http://www.golive.com/>
><http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=04922>
>
>  Our colleague Neil Robertson, a professional Web designer at
>  Phinney Bischoff Design House and a frequent speaker at Web design
>  conferences, seconded the pointer to CyberStudio. "I was already
>  seriously looking at GoLive Cyberstudio since Symantec was taking
>  so long to upgrade Visual Page, so it now looks like Symantec has
>  lost my business and any future recommendations I might have
>  made."
>
><http://www.pbdh.com/>
>
>  When I asked Scott Morrison if there was anything Visual Page
>  users could do, he encouraged people to leave messages in the
>  Symantec technical support newsgroup, where he plans to collect
>  them for presentation to upper management. So, if you're a Visual
>  Page user, check out the Web interface to the Symantec newsgroups
>  and offer your opinion. Make sure to include quantifiable numbers,
>  such as the number of copies your organization owns, the number of
>  copies you caused to be bought, and the number of Macs for which
>  you're responsible. And if you're an individual user, your
>  opinions count as well, perhaps even more so than before with
>  Apple's renewed focus on the consumer market with the iMac.
>
><http://service.symantec.com/cgi-bin/newsgroups.pl?count=50&sortby=
>BYSUBJECTA&group=symantec.support.devtools.mac.visualpage.announce&
>Submit=Browse>
>
>  I think what tweaks me off the most about this entire situation is
>  that all these programs originated on the Mac, starting with
>  PageMill. They came from small start-ups inhaled by larger
>  companies, who have either let the products languish or refocused
>  their entire attention on the Windows world. Companies that have
>  remained independent and focused on the Mac, such as GoLive
>  Systems and Bare Bones Software, seem to be doing fine, so I don't
>  believe the market has changed all that much.
>
><http://www.barebones.com/>
>
>  I think we're staring into the twisted visage of corporate greed
>  here. Sure, the Mac market isn't as large as the Windows market,
>  but as has been pointed out ad infinitum, Mac users buy more
>  software and tend to be more brand loyal (even considering the
>  Apple soap opera of 1997). Loyalty would seem to be a concept lost
>  on companies like Symantec, Adobe, and FileMaker, and as long as
>  they don't get it, I see no reason they deserve any loyalty from
>  the user community.
>
>
>Cleve Callison <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>General Manager, WMUB Public Radio
>Williams Hall, Miami University, Oxford, OH
>513-529-5958, 513-529-6048 FAX
>http://www.muohio.edu/wmub/
>

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