Re: End-user doc kits?

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- STARBASECORP -dot- COM>]

John Taylor asks...

> Scenario: Company X sells an application to developers who heavily customize
 it
>  and
> then sell the customization to their own customers. Because of the extent of
 the
> customization, X's own end-user documentation for the application doesn't work
>  very
> well for the customers of the customizer. So what X does is provide the
> developer/customizer with an end-user doc kit, containing
> materials/templates/instructions for producing end-user docs.

> Does this sort of thing ever happen? Anyone know of anything like this?

StarBase has sold its technology to other companies and
has purchased technology to be included in their own
products.

Once we sold the whole product to be bundled with some
related stuff and I shipped the doc set off electronically
for them to slap a new cover and copyright page on. Other times
we've sold just the API (application programming interface) and
provided documentation for it, but left the buyer to produce
whatever documentation they deemed necessary when they were
done incorporating our stuff into theirs.

When we've purchased technology from others, we've received
similar stuff -- documentation for how to use the product
they produce -- but nothing on what to tell the end-user.
Documenting our implementation has always been strictly
up to us.

I suppose it would really depend on the situation, but,
for the most part, company Y would usually be pretty much
on their own as far as what they wanted to tell the end-
user about their implementation of the company X product.
Of course, actually getting significant info from company
X is a benefit you can't always count on but nice to have.
;-)

Sue Gallagher
sgallagher -at- starbasecorp -dot- com