We're probably getting Captivate today, and we may be offered Authorware as well (we do not have the option to ask for other products such as Lectora). Should we take it?
Here's a sketch of our circumstances and considerations:
We provide training for a total of 350 people. We are new to online training (probably publishing our first, made with Captivate, next week) and do not have an LMS.
The stakeholders have not asked us for outcome evaluation as I have been required to provide on other jobs. I would quite like to have it, yet am not clear how much programming support may be available to help us set it up.
We provide a lot of one-time training for people who have to use new devices, new software (usually not very complex), etc.
We conduct a lot of training that is requested, put together and offered within a week, and never needed again.
At the same time, we have a bigger computer system for which the training needs are quite different. Someday, perhaps, successful completion of training will be required prior to being granted access.
Having a master's in educational psychology, I appreciate a more powerful analysis of learners and outcomes and such than we have available now but I don't know how much of an infrastructure we will be able to assemble.
We also notice that Captivate is easy enough to use that we can jump in right now (we've spent our free time lately reading the manuals). I understand that Authorware has a steeper learning curve, but is it as steep as Flash?
All feedback is most appreciated.

Some thoughts:

Authorware is a very robust program, and yes it's learning curve is steep - it is considerably harder to learn and use as Captivate and nearly as difficult as Flash.

Authorware is a much deeper program than Captivate, but Captivate may cover your needs. Captivate is great especially for software similuations. It is useable, but less sreamlined for soft skills / non-simulation training.

Authorware is no longer being updated by Adobe - it is offically a dead product. As such, there are limited resources for it - training, books, etc. It is not supported on Vista and users report varying success running on and publishing to Vista. My employer just moved away from Authorware for this reason; we went to Lectora.

Hope some of this helps!

Hi Eric,
Thanks for your comments on Authorware. I was wondering what you think of Lectora -- its ease of use, features, etc.
We had started learning Flash but anticipate that Captivate may allow us to publish our short-term projects before continuing with Flash (if we continue with Flash at all).
By the way, we are doing software training.
Thanks for any thoughts you share.

Kathy,

For software training, it doesn't get any easier/better than Captivate. The tool is the lifeblood of our company, which is primarily software training. Captivate is definitely the right tool for the job.

Now, the benefit with Lectora is you can integrate Captivate SWFs into Lectora with ease too. Lectora has some <grumble> "features" that make large project development a little cumbersome and it is expensive, but overall - it is a good tool for beginners. When you combine it with CourseMill, you truly have a one button SCORM publish to the LMS without a lot of knowledge about SCORM.

I hope this helps!

Jason

Interesting - I'm working on a lectora course now with a captivate module. We're having issues, however.

Have you found a way to call the lectora next page function after the captivate module ends? That is, I can start up the captivate module without issue. At the end of the captivate module there is a button to proceed which I'd like to take the user to the next page in lectora.

Any success in this?