Quark’s spin doctors can’t fix what poor sales policy should have rectified 3 years ago - when you’re buying upgrade licences for a studio full of computers InDesign is a fraction of the price - the features are a bonus.

I made no assumption and no claim that Adobe would do that.

I said they ‘MAY get complacent’ – not ‘ARE complacent’. My point was that if at some point in the future there were an environment of no competition for Adobe, then that would be a possible scenario. A monoploy environment is rarely good for consumers.

I have absolutely no problem with Adobe or their customer service. I use their products everyday and wholeheartedley recommend their software and have high regard for their level of customer service and pricing structures.

I take your point about Photoshop, that is true.

P.S.

Photoshop hasn’t had a real competitor in who knows how long, yet Adobe still instills new, worthwhile features, which will help ensure it stays on top. It’s much easier to hit a lumbering, giant target than a moving, adaptable one. Quark is now learning that the hard way.

That reviewer guide is just pure gold. It’s the best marketing document for Indesign ever!
P - Indesign convert

is the Quark 7 article only that good because you got bashed here?
Anyhow, thanks for the almost unbiased article.

Greetings
Peter

It’s the most powerful, most feature-packed version of QuarkXPress ever built, they said. It stimulates creativity and inspires organic work, they claim. They said it will revolutionize publishing. Quark VS InDesign.com goes deeper into QuarkXPress …

And the editorial team here needs to start churning out some good articles. Your review of 7 will be read by quite a few of us. It would be interesting to see if you are actually as unbaiased as you claim to be.

cheers

If you want to find humor in marketing, just look at the many, many slogans that Adobe has rolled out over the years, each a highly-crafted (and expensive) effort to position the company for whatever direction they happen to be taking at the time.

Who cares what Quark says in some background marketing material? And even more mysterious is who cares what the supposed “staff” of quarkvsindesign has to say about it? And as long as we’re calling Quark on their hype, what about your own references to the Quark vs. InDesign “office” and “our staff?” You are clearly trying to create an impression that your part-time Website is something of substance when it is most likely run out of a spare bedroom. Any quick review of your stable of self-promotional Websites proves that you know the value of hype and have no trouble stretching the truth for your own benefit.

I hesitated to spend time commenting, but as a supportive XPress user (they’ve always done right by me) I couldn’t let this one go un-challenged. Your time as an Adobe employee is not only clouding your view, it’s exposing your bias.

And you are definitly biased, just look at your article before trying to defend Adobe’s lame support for Intel-based machines.
They force us to upgrade to CS3 if I want speed on a Intel-based box.
If Quark had done that (remember 68k/PowerPC and OS 9/OS X?) we would be bitching about it… Do I know whether I need CS3? No. Do I know I will be buying a MacBook Pro and want speed and native support? Yes.

So please make your comments a bit more objective again and let’s lean back and benefit from the competition between the two vendors.

Greetings
Peter

SB

Yes, accusations of this site bing pro-InDesign / anti-Quark are common—and cyclical.

In the middle and toward the end of InDesign release lifetimes, when there’s little InDesign news to report, QuarkXPress tends to warm up with new products, announcements, and other news. During those times there’s a lot of Quark-related coverage on Quark VS InDesign.com and not much InDesign- or Adobe-related. And, during those times, Quark VS InDesign.com is accused of being pro-Quark / anti-InDesign.

It’s cyclical and inevitable when your entire mission is to report on a war where so many passions—and jobs—line up on either side. And, believe me, people are passionate. How many software industry analysts get hate mail and death threats from both InD and QX fans?

Two weeks ago I was publicly accused of being “pro-Quark while pretending to be pro-InDesign” for comments I made about QX7 being a leap forward not only for Quark but for the publishing industry and its future.

Quark VS InDesign.com is not anti-Quark. It’s anti-b.s. If Adobe had put out a reviewer’s guide with the bold statements of Quark’s, this would be a story lampooning that. I don’t make it up; I just react to it.

Someone said, beyond these comments, that it’s not right to kick a man when he’s down.

Quark’s not as down as many think. If QX7 weren’t such a big rebound for Quark, I would never have run the above story. Six months ago, Quark was definitely down. And I held back several editorials and satires that came across my desk. They were interesting and would have been good reads, but they held no real value to readers beyond taking jabs at Quark’s mistakes—mistakes that have already been made public. Quark had a rough 2005, and I saw no need to add to the company’s problems unnecessarily. In my opinion as editor of this site, the only purpose of publishing those pieces would have been to be mean to Quark. I’m not mean, and neither is Quark VS InDesign.com.

InDesign is still a better product than QX7 for many uses—for all the usual reasons—but QX7 does some important things that InD doesn’t. In certain workflows, these new or updated features will make all the difference in the world. Quark has finally gotten into the fight, and they’re doing it where and how it counts, not just with over zealous postcards, advertorial, and speeches. And, they’ll have it on the market at least 6 months ahead of InD CS3, which will allow them to dig in and hold the industries they’re targeting.

Xpress has always been a good and amazing product. I’ve been at this since the pre-DTP revolution days. I remember what it was like to strip and wax my own layouts by hand, to cut my own color seps. Xpress—even PageMaker—are amazing tools when you remember doing it by hand. I even like Xpress (shocking, I know). I love InDesign, of course, because InD did most things better, more easily, and a good deal more enjoyably than Xpress. The advantages of InD over QX7 are significantly fewer the advantages of InD over QX6x. However, just because InD is a better product, that doesn’t make Xpress a bad one.

I’ve never advocated the demise of Quark as a software publishing company—I predict it, but I’ve never advocated it. When it happens, it will be sad for the industry becauese a piece of history (rocky or otherwise) will have been lost. It will also be sad for consumers because, as most recognize, competition is healthy.

Despite the fact that Photoshop hasn’t had realistic competition since Adobe bought Aldus and killed PhotoStyler, Adobe has never slacked off there. Keeping up with the Joneses is not what motivates Adobe development, so it’s unlikely that a lack of competition in the DTP space would cause InD and InC to lag. Still, innovations in QX will inspire innovations in InD & InC, and vice versa. We, the consumers, are the ones who will reap the benefit. I want QX and Quark to stay around for a number of reasons, but that one foremost.

For me, personally, Quark closing will be saddening for those same reasons but also because, among all the different hats I wear, I like my ten-gallon Quark VS InDesign.com hat most. I love covering this war, giving the blow-by-blow, calling Quark on its antics—and watching Adobe like a hawk for similar antics. It’s like watching a years-long hockey game.

No, Quark’s in a much stronger position today because of QX7 than they were a year ago. That company is nowhere near as down as many think, and they’re by no means out.

If the day comes that QX overtakes InD as the best product for the job, I’ll be the first to say it—loudly. QX7 is a lot closer to doing that, actually, than you might think. Read my full, unbiased review of QuarkXPress 7 next week to find out why.

Man, it’s going to be a fun hockey game!

And from now on:

“QuarkVSInDesign.com, a pro-InDesign website…”