The End of an Era...Authorware is Discontinued

"Authorware is Dead"...I have heard these words ever since I started using the product, back when it was sold by Authorware, Inc., in May 1990. I fell in love with this product, its flow line approach, its inclusion of a scripting language...albeit a very limited one in that first version on the Mac. With time, the scripting language got more powerful and JavaScript was added as an alternative, and a few icons were added, including the Framework and Navigate icons.

Eventually Macromedia asked me to help with the product and as you can see above, my name appeared in the credits.

Articles and Books
The product for me was simple but challenging and I liked it enough to start writing books about it, books that sold relatively well in such a small niche market. I wrote articles about it for Brandon Hall and for the eLearning Guild, among others. Writing my first book instantly made me recognized by many who previously didn't know me.

Conferences
I am the only person alive who has attended every single Authorware conference. Not only that, but I have also spoke and taught at every one of them. Let's start with The Alternative Authorware Conference (TAAC), started by my good friend Tom Adams. Did TAAC really mean Tom Adams Authorware Conference? It was continued later by Mark Henry. A couple of times Mark held TAAC in the Adams Mark hotel - really? Adams Mark? Tom Adams Mark Henry? Strange. I keynoted at several TAACs and was presented with a lifetime achievement award, seen here. The very first year of TAAC I was asked to be keynote speaker by Tom. I arrived in Snowbird, Utah, with bronchitis. The thinner air didn't help. I gave my keynote and then was brought to Urgent Care where they gave me antibiotics and promised me I wouldn't die (ever). Ah, memories of imminent death!

Then there was EuroTAAC, which was held in The Netherlands, England, Scotland, and Germany over the years. This year my friend Ole Kristensen held it in Randers, Denmark. I keynoted at several of these and taught precon at most of these as well. This year I even appeared on the Danish TV news. You can see the clip here. It's in Danish, but you can make out the words "guru Joe Ganci", "e-learning" and something about "what a sexy guy."

Tom Adams later created another conference called TAW - the Texas Authorware Workshop. Once again, though, we wondered if it didn't stand for the Tom Adams Workshop! Kidding, kidding. This was held in Dallas two years in a row. Very enjoyable, very informative.

Finally, there was AMGAC (Aviation, Military and Government Authorware Conference) founded by AMy Blankenship. It was small but wonderful, held in Biloxi, Mississippi. Amy and I became better friends. I was already friends with Steve Howard, who is originally from Scotland, lived in England, and helped take over EuroTAAC after the Dutchies sold it off. Steve and Amy eventually married in Biloxi. I went to their wedding. Never had I heard a stranger mix of accents - Scottish and Mississipian! They are good friends to me and always will be. They were in the path of Hurricane Katrina later, but survived and are doing well today.

You can see lots of conference photos here on our Authorware site.

Training
Over the years, I trained Authorware all over the United States, Canada and Europe. I love teaching and it gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of great people, many of whom I count among my friends.

Loyalty
Authorware developers tend to be fierce defenders of the product. The battles between religious sects are nothing when compared with the battles between Authorware adherents and those who liked opposing tools!

Recent History
When I started my own company, the esteemed DazzleTech, I was well-known as an Authorware guru, so naturally most of the work we got were from clients using Authorware. It wasn't long, though, before we realized we had to diversify to be able to reach the largest number of clients. I was an old-time programmer and became conversant with Flash. I had already used Director and other tools and then started looking for contractors and employees to hire that knew more than I did. I hit pay dirt when I brought on Chris Swenson and eventually made him a partner in the company. He not only sponges up new technologies easily, he is innovative and comes up with great solutions all the time. He is the author behind our own authoring system, Substance.

The Death of Authorware
Authorware's demise has been predicted from the start. Every few months, rumors of Authorware's death were circulated, usually by those who used other authoring tools. Sometimes the rumors came from Adobe employees, but it was hard to know what to believe because the rumors were so frequent and then another version of Authorware would be released. I always said that like any software, Authorware would eventually reach the end of its life cycle. I'm happy to say it has lasted twenty years in the marketplace! That's quite an achievement and a tribute to Michael Allen, who created the product, and to Jamil Zainasheff, among many others, who continued to engineer and defend the product at Macromedia.

But now we've reached the end, for all practical purposes. Yes, for the time being version 7.02 will continue to be sold, but it's time to move on. Good luck to us all.

Read Adobe's announcement here.