Adobe Systems Inc is thought to be working on a new Quark Killerapplication, codenamed K7. The MacOS Rumors web page has heard from various sources, including a well connected reader, that K7 is currently in the early alpha development stage, and is being shown to key Quark sites in an attempt to discourage them from upgrading to QuarkXpress 4.0. Quark finally released Xpress 4.0 last November for Macintosh and Windows NT after years of delay, and last month began shipping an NT version for Digital Equipment Corp’s Alpha processor. According to the rumor, K7 integrates Portable Document Format handling, and has the major features of Photoshop, Illustrator and Streamline built-in. But Quark is likely to take a dim view of plans for the new product to read all Quark plug-ins on top of Photoshop ones. Quark’s customers weren’t overjoyed recently to find that Quark had decided to discontinue the mTropolis multimedia programming application it acquired last year with mFactory Corp (CI No 3,156). It hinted at the time it was more interested in the user base than the product. The latest version, mTropolis 2.0 will be shipped free to registered customers, but won’t be developed further, and mFactory’s Bulingame, California headquarters was closed down last month. Quark says it’s reviewing how to use the technology within its other products.
