It’s official! Quark Inc is universally hated by its users. Years of draconian licensing agreements, inflexible, awkward and expensive upgrades, and the absolute minimum of support are catching up with it. At the Siebold debate on the proposed merger between Quark and Adobe, the 200-strong publishing industry audience were asked if anyone thought such a merger would be a good idea. Not a hand was raised. The general feeling at the meeting was that, if Adobe was allowed to come out with its K2 Quark Killer, which received a partial demonstration at the Seybold event on Tuesday, then Quark might see a mass defection of its users. Users were not keen to see Quark control the triad of essential tools, QuarkXpress, Photoshop and Illustrator. Some said, however, that the Quark move was a necessary shock to the system in a market where innovation has virtually come to a standstill since PageMaker ceased to be a viable competitor.
