Thursday, June 02, 2005
Quality Time
I’ve been spending a little quality time over at Quark vs. InDesign today, and I’m enjoying the site tremendously. Devoted to cataloging developments in the two publishing heavyweights, it’s also entertaining and fun.
On a graphics geeky note, one of their commenters on the site is saying that Quark, with the release of Xpress 7, will regain its publishing throne and that everyone will migrate back once they see the new features. This could be true, but, for myself, that isn’t going to happen. Not only have I already shelled out the cash to make the switch to InDesign, but I’ve grown used to the way that it works, and I like its feature-set.
The tough truth for Quark is that they dug themselves a giant hole. Customers gave them more than a little goodwill over the years and Quark abused the relationship; regaining that goodwill is going to be tough when dealing with designers who have already made an investment in another technology.
There’s a lesson there for all businesses.
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Comments & Trackbacks
Hey Z, I have only a little experience around ID; truth be told the last time I did any “hard core” desktop publishing was back in the early 90s (I was 12, working with my brother) using Pagemaker and Ventura. How *is* InDesign these days anyway? I’ve never used QuarkEx. Is ID the killer app these days?
I’m with you on this one. The commenter who believes everyone is just going to switch back is living in la-la land.
It takes a lot to get people to switch ANY type of platform (software, OS, restaurants, grocery stores). Especially printers, designers, publishers, etc. (some of the most stuck in the mud people I’ve met are printers who were still debating whether to switch to OS 10 last year. You basically have to really tick someone off. Quark (I’ve used quark since 1991 through Quark 4. I didn’t buy 5 and I sure didn’t buy 6) managed to do just that.
But once someone HAS switched, the process is *just as difficult* to reverse.
PLUS, InDesign is tightly integrated with *the* killer app - Photoshop. The toolbox is similar, they work together well.
I’m sure Quark will maintain market share, but they don’t have anything to rival the adobe suite.
Thanks for reading, QuarkVSInDesign.com, zombyboy. I’m glad you enjoy the site!
Print design and production is a lot like a train. The nature of the business requires constant forward motion, as fast as possible, to keep the presses rolling and everyone working to capacity. To locomote without stutters and stops, one basic workflow--hardware and software--is necessitated throughout the industry--this is the track. For a train the size of this industry to slow, stop, and change to another direction, costs time, money, and Rolaids.
The train has already slowed, stopped, switched over to the InDesign track, and is beginning to build up steam again. Pretty soon, the majority of the cars will be transitioned over to that track.
To slow the train again and reverse it to its original QuarkXPress direction would be costly to those who haven’t yet recouperated the impact from the intitial switch. The only reason they would do that is if InDesign no longer met their creative and production needs, or if Adobe failed to treat them as valued customers. Neither is likely to happen in the near future.