Normally I would just give the link to the story, and a few details, but considering the way the link reads, it may be a moving link:
the link: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/top_news_item.cfm?NewsID=5433 The story: Quark pulls out of UK, 'dislikes Mac' By Dominique Fidele Quark has pulled out of the UK, firing all but two of its UK staff. One former Quark employee claimed that CEO Fred Ebrahimi ?does not like the Macintosh platform?, implying that the UK was largely a Mac market. The offices affected are in Guildford and those attached to Ebrahimi 's Surrey-based mansion. The company's principal application QuarkXPress has recently been updated to version 5.0, but it is not yet OS X-native. Adobe's rival DTP package, InDesign 2.0, is Carbonized for Mac OS X. An undisclosed source blamed high salaries and soaring IT expenditures in the UK for the withdrawal. Ironic exit Workers, who were informed on Friday, are said to have received the news well ? "but they didn't have an inkling of what would happen" the source added. Last week Quark relaunched its customer care program ServicePlus. However, all UK technical-support issues and sales will now be redirected to Quark's European HQ in Switzerland: "It?s ironic because we were meant to be going around UK users saying: ?Look, there's a UK presence, and there's also a local UK support number?," the source added. "We were going around our 100 largest clients, saying isn't QuarkXPress 5 great, especially with local support, too," he told Macworld. Desktop exit He speculated that Quark's move could have wider implications for the company: "I think this is a move away from the desktop to the enterprise market." Another undisclosed former UK Quark employee said that this was the company's "final nail in the coffin". "Everyone was already looking at Adobe's InDesign, and now they have an excuse to switch - but that's just my opinion," he told Macworld This is the second time that Quark has pulled out of the UK. The first time was four years ago. Quark representatives were unavailable for comment. Hmm, maybe they are watching the squabbling between Apple and IDG over trade shows and decided to try some of the same????? Jerry The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will be October 22 For more information, see <http://www.aye.net/~lcs>. A calendar of activities is at <http://www.calsnet.net/macusers>.
