Quark7 launched; too little, too late?

Will this be a case of closing the barn door after the cow has escaped? In New York, Quark XPress has released Version 7 of the 25-year-old software package, trumpeting some 160 changes and improvements.

But at the same time, according to a story in Folio:, its major rival, Adobe, released news of yet another convert to its InDesign Creative Suite. Health and wellness publisher Rodale (Prevention, Men's Health) has switched the production of all of its magazines and books to InDesign, joining Future Network USA, Hearst Magazines and Meredith, among others. Rodale converted 400 seats to the application over the course of a year while simultaneously upgrading to the Macintosh OS X operating system. (Just last week, Rogers Media in Toronto announced that it would be converting all its consumer and trade books over to InDesign.)

Adobe has also, and uncharacteristically, released some details about its forthoming Creative Suite 3, not due to come out until spring 2007.

Quark denies being spooked. In the Folio: story,Jurgen Kurz, Quark’s senior vice president, desktop products, called this the biggest upgrade ever and said 75,000 dowloads of the beta release indicated a huge interest. "Kurtz noted that he doesn’t “spend sleepless nights” worrying about long-time competitor Adobe, which also develops design products. 'I worry about what you need,' he said, directly addressing the designers in the audience."