08:22 PM ET 09/02/98
Quark's bid for Adobe finds little support at publishing show
By Duncan Martell
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The hands said it all.
After a debate over whether Quark Inc. should swallow chief
rival Adobe Systems Inc. and what it would mean for the
publishing community, not one designer raised a hand in favor
of Quark's surprise bid made last week.
While the results from the panel discussion at the Seybold
Seminars Publishing Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday
were hardly scientific, it was clear that closely-held Quark --
roughly one-fifth the size of Adobe -- has a pitched battle
ahead of it to win converts among its own customers.
"I'd hate to see Quark's culture imposed on Adobe," said
Steve Tholen, an engineer with Wallace Integrated Graphics,
based in Silver Springs, Md., and a large customer of both
Adobe and Quark. "I'm absolutely with Adobe."
More than 250 Adobe and Quark customers packed a
hall here on Wednesday to hear six panelists square off. Adobe,
based in San Jose, Calif., and Denver-based Quark together
dominate the market for publishing and graphics software used
to print newspapers, magazines and brochures.
Audience members and panelists offered a range of motives
for Quark's overtures. Some said it had to do with Quark's fear
of K2, a new Adobe product due out next year and which has been
dubbed the "Quark Killer." QuarkXpress has about 95 percent of
the market for high-end, sophisticated page layout programs.
"There's a lot of merit to that" motive, said Craig Cline
of Ziff Davis's Comdex & Forums division, which organizes trade
shows for the software and computer industry.
Others argued the publishing software market has become
saturated, and that true innovations in the technology have
been few and far between in the last three years.
"The market is saturated; it's not growing," said Walter
Schild, of GenX Interactive, an Adobe and Quark customer. "I
see some bleak times ahead for Adobe and Quark."
Adobe has been hurt in recent months by slowing sales of
its software to Apple Computer Inc. Macintosh computer users
and plunging sales in Japan. It also has been criticized for a
lack of new products.
Apple interim Chief Executive Steve Jobs
demonstrated on Tuesday how the new K2 software would work on a
new version of Apple's forthcoming operating system upgrade.
"No doubt Quark is worried about Adobe's K2 coming out next
year," Tholen, of Wallace, said.
Any deal between the two would also mean a culture clash of
mammoth proportions, panelists and audience members said.
While Quark's product draws high and nearly unanimous
praise from customers, its customer service and the ease of
installing new licensed copies of QuarkXPress, have not.
"If we have problems (with Quark products), we end up
having to troubleshoot and debug that ourselves," said Michael
Cates, head of publishing technologies for Hallmark Cards.
On top of that, there are potential antitrust questions
posed by any such combination. Quark has suggested remedying
antitrust concerns by selling off Adobe's PageMaker product and
the K2 product, the very same one that customers say is a
direct assault on Quark's core business, QuarkXPress.
Quark also has yet to name a price for Adobe nor to say
specifically what financing it has lined up for any such deal
nor if it has hired an investment banker to help with a deal.
((Palo Alto 650 846-5401 / [EMAIL PROTECTED]))
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