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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1179
Macworld UK: Users ready to dump Quark
By ron carlson, Insanely Great Mac
October 28th 2002
A week the embarassing 'Quark exiting UK' article they're back with a poll flaming the
company again
The results of a Macworld UK online poll indicate users of Quark's still-benchmark
layout program, XPress, are greatly dissatisfied and 40 percent have already moved to
Adobe's InDesign.
Always unscientific, online polls generally are worth less than the electrons used to
publish them. However, in the present case, even accounting for the fact that
complainers "self-select" themselves to take part in such measurements more than
those satisfied, 91 percent is certainly a number worthy of note and further analysis.
Additionally, Macworld UK poll takers indicated that 51 percent were "sick of waiting"
for a X-compatible version of XPress. Moreover, 40 percent of respondents said they've
already switched.
Asked if they would consider moving from QuarkXPress to InDesign, 1,268 people � 51
per cent � said they were sick of waiting for the Mac OS X version of XPress, while 40
per cent revealed they had already switched. The remaining 9 percent said they still
think XPress is still by far the best layout package out there.
Cocoa vs Carbon
Quark has announced that the next version of XPress will be a native OS X app -- i.e.
it is being completely rewritten under the Cocoa framework. Adobe's InDesign is
"merely" a carbonized app. This means that it not only lacks the ability to take full
advantage of X's new features, but also noticeably slow.
To be sure, InDesign represents a quantum competitive leap in its on-going battle for
supremacy in the desktop publishing market. But, aside the issue of X compatibility,
Quark leads by a wide margin not just in terms of market share but also developer
support -- i.e. there are literally hundreds of XPress plugings and third-party apps
designed to extend and enhance the app.
The crux of this battle of titans may in the end have little to do with performance or
features -- X compatibility is the factor that's driving the adoption of InDesign.
This largely due to the fact that for layout and publishing pros reliability will win
out over features and even compatibility every time.
What's your take? Are you moving your production process to InDesign now or do you
think the wait for a 100 percent pure-Cocoa version of XPress is worth the wait?
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