Echoing many of my previously published opinions, Samuel John Kleinobserves:
I think Quark is on the way to becoming the minority platform. That they are so publicly fighting a battle to prove thier vitality (QuarkVista, the reports that have been filed here) means that maybe they know that to have some position in the market, they?ve got to do this.
When Quark has to play catchup to InDesign, that’s a sure sign the rules have changed, I think.
Agreed. The rules have absolutely changed.
The King of the Hill is no longer on top; he’s sliding down the mound on his rear while a new King waves good-bye from the pinnacle.
Kamar Aulakh has taken charge and pointed Quark in a very different direction from that long travelled by Fred Ebrahimi. Pretty much since day one, Aulakh has recognized that Quark is no longer the dominant layout application in many of it’s former key markets. Rather than continuing to ignore the threat of InDesign, Aulakh set to work first trying to rebuild relations with those markets Quark still retains–for example, newspaper. Now, as indicated by the rumors of XPress 6.5 and especially 7, with its supposed “InDesign-like look and feel”, and by all the effort put into those products, the focus is on reclaiming some of the market lost to InDesign.
Whether Quark regains the status of serious InDesign competitor or simply becomes to InDesign what PageMaker was to XPress–an aging but occassionally useful second stringer–will depend largely on what 6.5 holds. If 7 isn’t to be released until mid-2005, that’s another year of InDesign eroding Quark’s user base and brand. Leaking rumors of 7 and its allegedly competitive features will only mitigate the damage so far. Quark truly needs to provide a taste of the future in 6.5; the half-step version needs to prove Quark’s commitment to the customer and what his work is about.
The market needs from Quark a show of good faith.