Quark is a party facing tough challenges from Adobe and other players who have knocked the troupe from its once - prevalent perch in the page layout package market . The company recently hired a new President and CEO , Ray Schiavone , who offered some insight about where he thinks the company needs to focus get going forrader .
Schiavone require over from company VP Linda Chase , who stepped into the role of act prexy since the abrupt divergence of Kamar Aulakh in June , 2005 . Schiavone arrive to Quark from Arbortext , an XML - based authoring and automated publishing software package developer .
Schiavone say that he ’s aware that the company has a strained relationship with some customers and has a repute for being uncommunicative and unhelpful .
“ That ’s very antagonistic to my way , ” Schiavone toldMacworld . “ And my horse sense was , ‘ I can posit that . ’ ”
Versus InDesign
Adobe has straightforwardly focalize its sights on QuarkXPress with InDesign CS2 , which has caused some sturdy Quark - centric job to flip in late years . The significance of this is n’t lose on Schiavone , but he sees some inherent reward in Quark as a company .
“ We ’ve got an advantage in being more nimble , peculiarly on the product exploitation side , ” pronounce Schiavone . “ We ’ve got to listen to customer and to partners and figure out where the chance are , and we have to supply those thing that Adobe and other companies are not doing . I am to bring the safe in breed to our intersection . ”
Quark ’s lightness in production development led the party to release a Universal binary interlingual rendition of QuarkXPress 7 sooner this year , while Mac users are still waiting for a version of InDesign that runs natively on Intel - based Macs . More recently , the companionship has inclose Quark Interactive Designer , a tool that enables QuarkXPress 7.0.2 user to create Flash content . Schiavone sees opportunities like these as central going forward .
“ I ’m encouraging our developers to believe very hard about excogitation and project out ways that we can be first to market , ” he enounce . Schiavone say that extends to Quark ’s bevy of third - political party developers and integrators .
Winning hearts and minds
Is Quark better off forgetting about customers who have defected to InDesign and going just after new market opportunities ? Schiavone says no .
“ Both Adobe and we have mature intersection lines , and we can contend for market part . And believe me , I ’m not letting that fight go , ” said Schiavone . “ On the other hand , I believe that we have a patriotic base of customers that we ’re serving well and avail to grow . ”
Make no misapprehension , though , Schiavone is looking to offer Quark ’s relevance with young products .
“ We ’ve been a one - trick crib for a foresighted time , and you may only ride that horse for so long , ” he said . “ I was bring on to extend the business and extend the product line . I ’m looking for young applied science both inside and outside of Quark [ to help do that ] . ”
“ Obviously what I do is more important than what I say , ” said Schiavone . To that oddment , he go for that Quark ’s client and partners will watch with open head as he works to metamorphose both Quark ’s culture and its ware growing focus .
