Re: [WinMac] Re: Quack
Chick Foxgrover(cfoxgrover[at]truenorth.com)
Tue, 2 Feb 1999 09:41:46 -0500
PageMaker was first. It's the first program any of us in the graphic arts
learned to do layout work. Except Ready,Set,Go which probably no one
rememebrs but was much faster and less likely to crash. These programs had
the market to themselves for about 2 years with PageMaker by far the more
well-known. What QuarkXpress had from the beginning when it arrived was the
ability to be precise to allow the layout artist to control the position
and typography with tenths of a point, real kerning pairs, H&J controls,
style sheets etc. If you were a "professional" and you wanted to get
important contracts in publishing you were going to be more productive
QuarkXpress. They followed with better separation control, better word
processing, a plug-in architechure, useful Applescript access, multiple
master support etc.
PageMaker had a HUGE head start with market share and an easier more
intuitive interface (I spent some years teaching Quark to PageMaker users)
and yet lost the professional market by not providing the features many
professionals needed in a timely manner. It was actually pretty gradual and
surprising decline. PageMaker was a succesful company that should have been
able to challenge QuarkXpress. Personally I think it was an attempt to
focus on the corporate market that doomed their development efforts for
professionals. Graphics in still a limited market after all and it's
tempting to think you could sell thousands of copies of your program to
some multinational corporation but sometimes you'll lose your focus in the
attempt. Once you decided to learn Xpress there was little reason to go
back and it's still true, which is all the more remarkable since no company
I have ever dealt with treats their customers with more contempt.
PageMaker is NOT a lame program and is still very popular in corporations
(and mostly on the PC) but I know noone in the graphics arts community in
NYC who uses PageMaker any longer. Most people hate Quark and can't wait to
get a look at K2 but so far noone, not PageMaker, not FrameMaker, not
Ventura, not Unicorn, not Ready Set Go has been able to do it. And it will
be an uphill battle with all the years of experience people have with Quark
and the very elegant solutions avaiable for database publishing, the
professional extension tool sets, the miles of productive applescripts.
At 12:55 PM -0800 2/1/99, Darryl Lee wrote:
>Well, i'm no desktop publisher. But i remember back in the day's when
>i aspired to be one (maybe 5-6 years ago), Pagemaker was still
>considered a "starter" DTP program.
>
>That is to say, Quark was the first to innovate with features that
>_publishing professionals_ needed. i'm not sure, but something about
>large multi-paged documents. Indexing them. Things like that.
>
>Now this of course is based on 1) only knowing Pagemaker, 2) being
>completely and utterly befuddled when confronted with Quark,
>3) hearsay, and a rapidly fading memory.
>
>Friends that _were_ in desktop publishing swore by (and probably at)
>Quark. But like it or not, it seemed to be the standard for "serious"
>publishing.
>
>i wouldn't be surprised if Pagemaker now matches Quark feature for
>feature and is maybe more stable. i always liked it, probably
>because the interface was so easy-to-use. And hey, look at the rest
>of the Adobe line, solid performers like Photoshop and Illustrator.
>(Never got much into Freehand.)
>
>But i think that early on, they were leapfrogged by QX in the features
>war (can you say "checkbox item?") and for better or worse, now Quark
>appears to own the market.
>
>But hey, i'm not in the publishing market at all. This is just a
>wannabe's view. >:}
>
>(Pagemaker was always plenty powerful for the one to four page
>newsletters, brochures or flyers i was working on.)
>
>--Darryl
>
>* Windows-MacOS Cooperation List *
>* FAQ: <http://www.darryl.com/winmacfaq/> *
>* Archives: <http://www.darryl.com/winmac/> *
>* Subscribe: <mailto:winmac-on@xerxes.frit.utexas.edu> *
>* Subscribe Digest: <mailto:winmac-digest@xerxes.frit.utexas.edu> *
>* Unsubscribe: <mailto:winmac-off@xerxes.frit.utexas.edu> *
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
Chick Foxgrover ----- Foote, Cone & Belding
212-885-3735 - cfoxgrover@truenorth.com
* Windows-MacOS Cooperation List *
* FAQ: <http://www.darryl.com/winmacfaq/> *
* Archives: <http://www.darryl.com/winmac/> *
* Subscribe: <mailto:winmac-on@xerxes.frit.utexas.edu> *
* Subscribe Digest: <mailto:winmac-digest@xerxes.frit.utexas.edu> *
* Unsubscribe: <mailto:winmac-off@xerxes.frit.utexas.edu> *
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2
on Tue Feb 02 1999 - 06:45:15 PST
|
|