"Dynamic HTML Tools Take On Complex Roles"-The SoftQuad/Alpha Paradox.
"...The technologies that make up dynamic HTML--Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), two- dimensional positioning, a Document Object Model (DOM), and a scripting API--are proving to be difficult to meld together into a single tool. As discussed in the first part of this article, this is the result of the vast amount of technology being developed and deployed in fourth-generation browsers, as well as the immaturity of these technologies and the incomplete or incompatible implementation of them in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator...While about half a dozen tools have emerged that claim to
author dynamic HTML, they each mean slightly different things...SoftQuad's HotMetal Pro 4.0 has always been very focused on how documents are structured--a natural derivation of that company's history as a strong proponent of the Standard Generalized Markup Language, of which HTML is an application. SoftQuad co- authored the initial DOM spec submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), but does not appear to have had time to get its work into the latest generation of its tool...What HotMetal Pro does remarkably well is deal with the separation of structure and presentation enabled through CSS, which was adopted as a W3C Recommendation at the start of this year...HotMetal's support for easy creation, editing, and management of multilayered style sheets makes it easy to define global styles for a site and then layer particular styles on top for pages or areas within that site. HotMetal takes a suite approach to addressing other areas of DHTML, bundling Arcadia's ScriptBuilder (albeit in a tightly integrated fashion) to handle JavaScript. Authors wishing to take advantage of CSS-Positioning, a draft specification that enabled two-dimensional animation, will have to resort to hand coding..."
webweek.com
Q: Will SQ ever make money with all this infrastructure and press? Do they know how?
Q: How does SQ let the world know about this?
Q: Does SQ have the financial and marketing critical mass to efficiently and effectively get HoTMetaL Pro, WebFiler, Alpha Five Pro to be #1 in their respective categories? If not, then it is incumbent upon management to spin off product and/or the company to a company or campanies which can establish these products as #1. The products are there. But there are smoking guns to suggest even SQ does not know what they are sitting on.
Q: Is SQ doing justice to each SQ and Alpha product. Are they spread too thin? Do products e.g. PowerCleaner make sense i.e. going up against Symantec and Quarterdeck et al?
Q: What is SQ doing about their packaging and overall marketing effort in re: WebFiler, PowerCleaner, Alpha Five Pro... Some of these products are so poorly packaged and merchandised it has to damage overall SQ perceived value...and WebFiler, potentially one of the hottest products the web could ever produce..the holy grail staring SQ in the face...and SQ is marketing it...Will they pull it off or is this HoTMetaL Pro, the Sequel...
It is managements sole responsibility to maximize shareholder value(.) They either have to get their act together as it appears they are in certain areas or put themselves in play with a company that understands shareholder value and market share maximization...CUC International, Quarterdeck, Symantec, come to mind. |
