Quark's Company Turnaround

[GraphicsTutor]

Sombody has to stand up and say how much Quark has changed in the last year and a half. They finally realized how their arrogance and unfriendlines was driving people into Adobe's lap. They now have entirely new leadership, are doing much more for customer service and are starting many new programs. The upgrades are coming out much, much faster. 6.1 and 6.5 were both free. X-Ray magazine is back and anyone can get 4 free issues of it. They are sending out free QuarkParticles e-newsletters also.

They are now starting up User's Groups in different cities. I am to facilitate the new one in the St. Louis area in two weeks. Three Quark people will be there for the kickoff. I belong to the Quark Alliance Partnership program. I can get tech support any time I need it and I will use a Alliance coupon to get the version 7 copy for free, thus basically paying for my membership cost. Through Alliance I am listed on Quark's site as a training provider and have picked up a couple contracts from it.

As a prepress operator, InDesign only accounts for one quarter to one third of all jobs submitted. Quark is still the biggest majority of jobs. Quark 6.5 is very stable and can take native .psd files and make changes to them from Quark. Version 7 will have transparency plus other goodies, though late (Adobe wouldn't license it to them before now).

Quark deserved and earned their bad reputation, but they have seen the light and have done something about it.

 

[jimoblak]

This glowing review of the company would be best stated after QuarkXPress 7 is released (although I am impressed with Quark's free technical support).

If InDesign only accounts for 1/4 to 1/3 of your jobs, how many does QuarkXPress 6 account for? I suspect Quark's current competitor is really QuarkXPress 4.

- - I hope this helps - -
_{(Complain to someone else if it doesn't)}

 

[jimoblak]

6.1 and 6.5 were both free

Of course they were free. Why should customers pay for patches to buggy software? Since you are in the Quark Alliance and might know, when are they going to release patches for 6.5?

- - I hope this helps - -
_{(Complain to someone else if it doesn't)}