In the remarkable evolution that finds its voice in the phenomenon we like to call “Desktop Publishing War II”, it is sometimes useful to step back and get a trend-watcher’s perspective on the changes that are ongoing. Andreas Pfeiffer is an important trend-watcher; as the founder of The Pfeiffer Report on Emerging Trends and Technologies, his is a respected opinion.
Quite recently, via the daily newsletter from macfixit.com, my attention was drawn to an opinion piece he did for ZDNet’s Publish.com. The title, “QuarkXPress: Where Is The Market Going?”, embodies a question many of us ask every time we see a new murmur or rumor about what Quark’s doing next, and is especially relevant given that QuarkXPress 7 is being shown to selected audiences and is expected to ship this year, according to Quark’s UK director of market, Gavin Drake (as reported by Publish.com’s Ian Betteridge-see “Quark Gives First Look at XPress 7”, 17 Feb 2005, at this link).
Anyone who reads this forum regularly won’t be surprised by the what of his opinion, but his insights are crystal clear and concisely stated. Standing head and shoulders above the rest of the opinion is something I’ve not seen stated as such and something I think needed to be said: “Quark should have started a complete rewrite of the aging code-base of QuarkXPress way back when Adobe acquired Aldus, eight or nine years ago.” The conventional wisdom is that Quark “rested on its laurels,” but this insight cuts right to the bone.
Overall it is an excellent distillation of the history and the rules of combat, and correctly puts the onus upon Quark to improve or perish. Quark can make its own survival at this point. I highly recommend taking a few moments to read the article.
You can find it at: here
About the author: Samuel John Klein is a freelnce graphic and web designer in the process of being unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Email contact and examples of work can be found at The SunDial Earth Station.