Quark's Response

[MacRumors]

This email was sent to reader inquiries by Quark's Communications Manager in response to MacEdition's recent story (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2002/11/20021126091312.shtml) on Quark and OS X.


"Simply put, Quark is not shifting its focus away from the Mac platform. Our focus remains on helping our customers solve their business problems. We will continue to support the platforms our customers want to use. We'll develop software for Mac OS and Windows as our customers want to use those platforms.

If you cut through the purple prose, you'll see that a handful of comments have been taken out of context and re-cast in an unflattering manner by an anonymous writer who was not present at the event during which they were allegedly spoken.

Let me bring back some of the context. The fact of the matter is that the publishing industry is hurting. Ad revenues are down globally -- down as much as 70% in some regions. Look on any newsstand and you'll see that there are far fewer titles than there were two years ago, and page counts are down across the spectrum. Major dailies across the nation are closing bureaus and merging departments. Ad firms are fighting for business while corporations cut spending and bring work in house. Publishing is in a crisis. There is only one major software company that I know that has dedicated 100% of its resources to publishing: Quark. The technologies that we talked about in New York are designed to help publishers do more with fewer resources without sacrificing quality.

With respect to Mac OS, our market data indicates that fewer publishers are purchasing Macs, and more of our Mac-using customers are considering switching to Windows. That doesn't mean we\'re any less committed to Mac OS. Mac users constitute the majority of our customer base. We will continue to support Mac OS (and Windows) as long as they are the platforms of choice by our customers.

The Mac OS X version of QuarkXPress is far along in its development cycle, but there is still a lot more testing to do before we release it. We're working to bring that release to you as quickly as possible without sacrificing quality. It will be a high quality application with some paradigm-shifting new features and consequently represents a significant development and testing effort that simply takes time.

The anonymous writer points out that Mac OS X Server is not on the agenda for the version of QPS that uses a Microsoft SQL Server database or for Quark Digital MediaSystem, which uses an Oracle database. There's an obvious reason. Neither Microsoft SQL Server nor Oracle runs on Mac OS X. What they omitted is that we emphatically stated that the clients for both these publishing systems will run on Mac OS X.

In fact, the relationship between Quark and Apple is closer than it has been in years, and I think that the industry will be pleasantly surprised by some of the initiatives that Quark and Apple will bring to the market in the near future.

Please let me know if you would like to discuss this further.

Glen Turpin
Communications Manager, Quark, Inc.

<hr>
<font size=1>Submitted by BadAndy and rwarner1956</font>

[Foocha]

...Oracle is on OS X, or soon will be.

[meddle]

If they care then were is the the APP? Microsoft isn't this slow. First post?

[schalliol]

Could it be that people are switching to Windows because they don't have the Mac software? :rolleyes: Perhaps shipping their software on X will stop those customers' moves.

[bluecell]

Hmmm... sounds like back-peddling. Oracle supports MacOS X, in fact Apple was at OracleWorld. Quark has already lost a great deal of customers to InDesign anyway.

[idkew]

maybe quark customers are switching to windows because they prefer second rate software- quarXpress and windows.

indesign is much better than quark, and once it has a few years to mature ever more (v3 or v4) quark will be nearly out of business anyway.

[wymer100]

Maybe its because I'm not in the business, but I thought that most publishers use macs because they perfer macs. I figure that the "switchers" that Quark is talking about are people disgrunted with lack of powermac updates and dropping support for OS9. Do they really think switching to Wintel is really going to make things easier? Anyway, I thought Oracle 9 was on its way. I thought I read that MS is working on .Net for mac, as well. What will be their excuse after those come out for the mac?

[jeffhalmos]

Got the very same reply from Glen last night, with some personal mods. However, in defense of Quark (did I just say that out loud?), the publishing industry is terrible, and will get worse. Apple did apparently not release quality drivers for OSX until Jag, so Quark would have just ended up releasing another PR disaster as their 4.0 caused. Quark HAS to work out of the gate, or forget it. And InDesign is not a better app than XPress. Not even close. It's far slower and very clunky and unrefined. Has ANYONE found their rhythm with this thing yet? So while Adobe does a three month update cycle to their bloatware to keep us hooked, Quark does not work this way. It really shouldn't be considered in the same space as Illustrator or Photoshop. XPress is far more powerful and essential. We just have to learn to accept XPress as a unique product, and Quark has to learn to meet us half way. Does this sound like I only like XPress? Far from it. I too am pissed that I still have to use OS9 in emulation. But reality is reality. No use in slamming and flaming for the sake of it.

[mangoman]

Oh... Where to start? First, Jeff, ma boy: You're way off about InDesign, buddy. Way. It's not perfect (what is?), but as a guy who's used both since the beginnings, InDesign is stepping up to the throne.

And, um, Mr. Suchandsuch from Quark? Save your corporate babble for those weird a** die hards that still have to put up with Quark's rotten attitude towards its customers. Our shop just went full blown InDesign this year and we're not turning back. Trust me.

Adios, Quark. Down you go. (sound of toilet flushing.)

:D

[jeffhalmos]

I was waiting for a huge thrashing when you laced in with "Oh where to start" but all we got was a "InDesign is better dude" instead of a detailed synopsis. Hit me friend. tell me why! I'm open to discussion.

[Computer_Phreak]

ive not used either quark or indesign... but one advantage that Adobe has is that all of their applications are supported in OS X and they all work well together.

[Kid Red]

More of their clients switching to windows? Ah, don't know many publisjers that use windows or would ever think about using windows. I'd like to see some facts about that as that's a rather bold broad statement. Screw Quark, I hope Adobe hears about the "switching to ID would be suicide" comment, maybe they'll get publishers the features they need to completely finish off Quark. It's only a matter of time.

[fatalerror101]

well isn't this just a lot of B&!! S#^& jeez. I think quark should release what they have done thus far at MacWorld SF. Then reslease a free set of upgrades for it. And whoever wrote this article, maybe there is a less percentige of mac's purchased because thier is a big market slow down in the press industry. ???

I'll be happy with my Indesign2



PowerBook G4 1GHZ

[mangoman]

Jeff:

Your inquiry about proof says to me you're on the right track. Good man.

Proof: I've used InDesign since version 1, which IMHO was a real piece of crap. More buggy than Amish country (it's a midwest thang...). But with InD2 in full swing, I gave up Quark for good. Since then, I've sent over 500 pages of material to several different printers, using several of InD's bells and whistles--including transparency--and I haven't had an unsuccessful rip yet. Does that mean some of the PrePress gods didn't grumble? Nope. But I deal with the high end print shops in my city, and they've all come around to welcoming the InD files. Adobe's gettin' the bugs out. Finally.

More importantly, why does Quark suck/InD rule? With InD (and remember I've used Quark for many years), I don't have to bust out the manual to figure things out. Key commands are intuitive, as is the GUI in general. NOT perfect, but much better organized than Quirk. Customer support is good. I've used it several times--Adobe has demonstrated an upbeat 'Hey, what can we help ya with' attitude every time. Furthermore, I can SEE my EPS files beautifully! And the big draw for me, ,a typography FREAK, is that InD's really ON IT when it comes to creating beautiful documents in the department of type. Tools that I don't have to pay extra for, and type tools that do more for my type, with elegance and ease.

OK. That's my QUICK list. I could rant about my consistently rotten experiences with Quark customer service, my constant beef about their archaic, clunky GUI, etc. Maybe later. I've got a turkey to prepare for now.

I do hope you get the opp' to really dig around in InD. My boss, a DEVOUT (really) Quark user of almost ten years, took a dare from me, used InD for ONE day. We outfitted all of our workstations with InDesign the following week. Done. Never upgrading to Quark again.

My final thought to the Lost Ones at Quark: Go pound sand up your a**. You suck.

'Night all. Tomorrow I'll give thanks for lots of wonderful things. Like InDesign.

Happy T-Day.

[mangoman]

Originally posted by Computer_Phreak
ive not used either quark or indesign... but one advantage that Adobe has is that all of their applications are supported in OS X and they all work well together. Oh yeah, and what he said, too. (And thanks for listening, Jeff!)

[jeffhalmos]

I too am a type snob, and I've found ID's Type handling to be a little complicated. But then, I have 12 years of unlearning XPress to truly feel comfortable with ID. What I've found stunningly frustrating is ID's seeming inability or unwillingness to paste text unformatted into a doc. This was a wonderful thing in XPress. Any tips on how to do this? No matter what I try, I cannot select a paragraph in ID, and replace it with type from another app or file, not even email. I have to set up styles first. Argh! Solve this, and I'll join you on the other side.

[jeffbunch]

mangoman: You're right about IDv1 sucking a lot, but I haven't seen enough improvement to switch. I keep starting projects with ID, but end up completing them in Quark. I'm desperate for a OS X app, but just not that desperate. The interface for ID, while the same as Photoshop/Illustrator, is way too jumble for me and I have a dual monitor setup. If they had a measurements pallette like Quark maybe then I'd switch but I keep getting lost in the sea of palletes when I want to change. Document layout is different than photoediting/illustrations and should have it's own purpose-specific interface.

And before the negative responses, I'm not a Quark lover by any stretch. The company sucks in the customer service department and is such a quirky company to deal with, considering what they charge for their product. But it works, and works well. On paper, ID looks better by far, but I'm talking about the real world. The majority of people I know use Quark instead of PageMaker/InDesign and they're not switching anytime soon. I give them the selling points of ID but you can take Quark from their cold dead hands.

Quark spanked Aldus (original PageMaker) when it was king, maybe Adobe will return the favor, but that won't be for a long time. People will just stay with OS 9 and Quark because it's what they know until something compelling enough comes along. (soon hopefully)


Kid Red Ditto on the switching to Windows part. What BS!!

[fcd]

I'm so sick of this company, and especially here in Australia, I layout $1500 ten years ago, then another $1300 for an upgrade, then if i want the current version it's another thousand buck's, Support has been totally **** in this country.
Then, i find that you can purchase it in the states for a 1/4 of the Aussie price, guess what, the kuntz at the Aussie distrubutor tell me that it's illegal to purchase a forgien copy and use it here, - it's all too complicated, they have abandoned there grass root users - the small design, advertising or print agency, if they supported us more, maybe there would be more young startup title's on the newstands.
I'm going with Indesign- inovative, Fresh and alot cheaper, why drive the expensive family wagon, when there's a super horse powered sports car in the garage.

[xype]

I am workind with InDesign ever since I first touched it. And I use PDF, most print shops around here suppoer InDesign and PDF already and the only situation where one may have problems is if the Press is using non-certified PostScript (=cheap) equipment. I also like the fact that for less money than XPress would cost me, I got the Adobe Publishing Collection. Right now I'm working on a 300+ page book and I feel fine.

[tmid]

This might help with pasting unformatted text in InDesign. Just click "Login as Guest" to bypass the login, if you aren't registered.

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@127.rry4aGUUtfa.3@.1de55022

I made the switch to ID as well. Used Xpress for years, but ID is getting better, faster, and does what I need it to do, nicely. Bumps along the way, but those are true of every app, and are almost always resolved by applying a little thought. (An app doesn't suck just because the user hasn't mastered it yet).

Funny thing: the one printer I work with that said he'd never touch an Adobe file is no longer in business. My other printer went all InDesign for in-house work more than a year ago. No regrets.

[AmigaMac]

You'd better tell that guy that Oracle does support Mac OS X!!!

:mad:

[GPTurismo]

That article reaks of "oops, you're mad? but you guys don't mean anything to us but here is some sugar to make you feel better"

[Chrissyboy]

A growing proportion of Quark users are Windows based - all that means is that more Mac users are tired of waiting around/being shafted and have hopped over to InDesign. That's not called "switching to Windows". That's called Quark haemorrhaging customers. Bye bye.

[Foocha]

Companies like Quark make me feel tired. Yawn!

I'd like to see someone like Macromedia buy them and put a rocket up their you know what ;)

[linescreen]

We as mac users have to face some facts.

1) the market share of Mac's this year has continued to fall even with all the switcher ads. The mac market share is around 3% and falling.

2) There has been a huge trend in technology to standardize platforms, java, .net ect....

3) Design houses are moving to the pc....I have seen it hear in nyc.

4) If a company does more than just publishing, there Senior IT people may make the entire company PC. They feel it is easier to support....and it may be.

5) The mac really does not compare in performance to a new pc these days....os x is still sluggish at times compared to jaguar.

Don't get me wrong, I love apple...but there marketting sucks.

[bluecell]

It's only going to get worse if Apple stays on the same path. Most people here don't seem to get it. The G4 needs to go, Apple needs to create more options for their customers, at lower price points, and they need to push in the enterprise market. I'm for the PPC if someone can maintain development, otherwise x86-64 is the only way to go. Steve Jobs isn't dumb, I'm sure he'll pull everything together in 2003. But no one really wants to see another G4.

[linescreen]

I agree.......

How many people out there will not switch because the clock speed of the mac is slower. And not only is the clock speed lower, the machine is slower...weather this is because of the operating system or not is a mute point....for most every day takst the pc is much faster.

PPC was a great idea, and it is a product,,,,just not enough r and d went into it.

Mac move to the x86 architecture makes sence.....

They could still sell hardware,,,i am sure there is something they could do to make themachines not boot windows, or other machines boot os x. Not that I agree with that at this point.

Apple needs to make some hard decissions...it is very much on the ropes this year, and I don't see a lot of people that understand this.

PPC has got to be faster than x86 this year, or it has to go.

What about moving to the itanium?

Steve better do something. performance is getting to be an issue....

I have a dual 800,,,my 1.8 intel screams in comparison at 1/3 the ram. Photoshop is faster, everything is faster. Lets not even talk about surfing a webpage!!!

[linescreen]

The reason quark is so popular is not because of its gui,,,its because of all the plug-ins and ad ons, and propriatary softare publishing houses have written for it.

I see no reason why they would not go to the pc.

I also think quark might be better off with out the mac....less platforms to support.

So they may be trying to get people to switch to the pc.

[Mr.Hey]

Originally posted by linescreen
The reason quark is so popular is not because of its gui,,,its because of all the plug-ins and ad ons, and propriatary softare publishing houses have written for it.

I see no reason why they would not go to the pc.

I also think quark might be better off with out the mac....less platforms to support.

So they may be trying to get people to switch to the pc.

yes they are and so are you..;)

[linescreen]

nah, i love my mac to much,,,,,i just wish apple could figure out how to increase the market share a bit. trouble is design shops and webshops are kicking the mac out....i freelance so I see this a bit. there are tons of all pc design shops now. I bring my powebook and refuse to work on them. They do suck, but explain that to the people who have the purchasing power....

one platform cost 3,500 and runs al the graphics apps

one platform costs 1,500 and runs allthe graphics apps, and all the other stuff i want my company employees to run.

Its a no brainer for the guys who purchase....

apple needs to do something!

[Codemonkey]

There is absolutely no correlation between Apple hardware performance and the lack of Quark for OS X.

NONE.

This is an issue of Quark not being able to run natively on Apple's OS. Possibility 1) As stated before they may be deliberately dragging their feet in order to get enough shops to switch to PeeCee to make NOT developing for the Mac a 'smart move'. Possibility 2) Again, as stated before they may be trying to engineer the new version so all the 'aftermarket' products don't become unusable - Upgrading to Quark is one thing - upgrading it as well as all your prepress junk, checkers, utilities etc. is an entirely different beast. Possibility 3) They're strapped. Starting from scratch on an app that relies on an industry that's -70% from flush sounds like a disaster. A recession is not the time for change, as it were. :-P

A couple of other notes: Apple was(is?) offering a free copy of InDesign with a new desktop - I think to some degree Apple saw exactly what this guy from Quark is talking about: Shops were bailing on the Mac platform in general for faster hardware (than they had) and maybe some other benefits. So I think Apple's reaction was to try and stem the flow and offer an incentive to stay. A BIG incentive. I suppose by stating that Apple and Quark are "closer than ever" I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is helping keep their coffers full too.

Anyway. These are just some thoughts. The ones claiming bad performance need to provide some sort of solid foundation for their arguments... Compare same-versions to same-versions. The ones touting a loss of marketshare, again, got stats? And how does this compare to overall growth? (read: 3% of 20 million is more than 3% of 10 million)

[MDA]

Originally posted by linescreen
We as mac users have to face some facts.

1) the market share of Mac's this year has continued to fall even with all the switcher ads. The mac market share is around 3% and falling.

Please provide some numbers. I've heard that it has actually gone up.

3) Design houses are moving to the pc....I have seen it hear in nyc.

As far as I know pre-press houses still prefer to use files produced on Macs. Do you have any names of switching design houses?

4) If a company does more than just publishing, there Senior IT people may make the entire company PC. They feel it is easier to support....and it may be.

I do think that departments outside of design are more and more becoming PC but I doubt that there is any big move in the design departments. Many designers simply won't allow it.

5) The mac really does not compare in performance to a new pc these days....os x is still sluggish at times compared to jaguar.

Please explain what you mean. Jaguar IS the latest version of OS X, and it isn't that sluggish on the new Mac's.

MDA

[mike3k]

Originally posted by bluecell
It's only going to get worse if Apple stays on the same path. Most people here don't seem to get it. The G4 needs to go, Apple needs to create more options for their customers, at lower price points, and they need to push in the enterprise market. I'm for the PPC if someone can maintain development, otherwise x86-64 is the only way to go. Steve Jobs isn't dumb, I'm sure he'll pull everything together in 2003. But no one really wants to see another G4.

An x86 mac won't be able to emulate PPC, so existing software won't run on the new x86 Macs and software written for the new machines won't run on our old PPC macs. The only reason PPC macs were able to emulate a 68K is because the 68K is so much simpler and slower than a PPC that it could be emulated at a reasonable speed. Since the PPC is so much more complex and not that much slower than x86 CPUs, it wouldn't be possible to emulate the PPC at a reasonable speed, so we won't see any emulator (or if we do, it would be similar in speed to VirtualPC).

One of two things will happen: software developers would be reluctant to buy the new machines, so no new software would be written for them, or they would drop support for older Macs since it wouldn't be worth the effort, so owners of old Macs would be left out in the cold completely.

Since the Mac market is already so small, splintering it further like this would be suicide. Also, unless Apple used proprietary hardware, people would be able to run MacOS X on other PCs, so everyone would stop buying Apple hardware.

For these reasons, I can guarantee that switching to X86 would be the death of Apple.

[bluecell]

Originally posted by mike3k
An x86 mac won't be able to emulate PPC, so existing software won't run on the new x86 Macs and software written for the new machines won't run on our old PPC macs. The only reason PPC macs were able to emulate a 68K is because the 68K is so much simpler and slower than a PPC that it could be emulated at a reasonable speed. Since the PPC is so much more complex and not that much slower than x86 CPUs, it wouldn't be possible to emulate the PPC at a reasonable speed, so we won't see any emulator (or if we do, it would be similar in speed to VirtualPC).

One of two things will happen: software developers would be reluctant to buy the new machines, so no new software would be written for them, or they would drop support for older Macs since it wouldn't be worth the effort, so owners of old Macs would be left out in the cold completely.

Since the Mac market is already so small, splintering it further like this would be suicide. Also, unless Apple used proprietary hardware, people would be able to run MacOS X on other PCs, so everyone would stop buying Apple hardware.

For these reasons, I can guarantee that switching to X86 would be the death of Apple. That old argument.

Emulators? It wouldn't take much for developers to port to x86. All it would take is some recompiling.

Suicide is staying with an architecture that's not that's not properly maintained. For example, the G4.

[gopher]

And here is the proof that Oracle supports Mac OS X if you want to write him again:

http://www.oracle.com/start/apple/intro.html?src=1439096&Act=4

I wrote him myself letting him know I'd like him to
think more about his position.

[gopher]

Originally posted by linescreen
I agree.......

How many people out there will not switch because the clock speed of the mac is slower. And not only is the clock speed lower, the machine is slower...weather this is because of the operating system or not is a mute point....for most every day takst the pc is much faster.

PPC was a great idea, and it is a product,,,,just not enough r and d went into it.

Mac move to the x86 architecture makes sence.....

They could still sell hardware,,,i am sure there is something they could do to make themachines not boot windows, or other machines boot os x. Not that I agree with that at this point.

Apple needs to make some hard decissions...it is very much on the ropes this year, and I don't see a lot of people that understand this.

PPC has got to be faster than x86 this year, or it has to go.

What about moving to the itanium?

Steve better do something. performance is getting to be an issue....

I have a dual 800,,,my 1.8 intel screams in comparison at 1/3 the ram. Photoshop is faster, everything is faster. Lets not even talk about surfing a webpage!!!

Funny, you run are able to run so fast, yet spell so badly. Is your PC that slow it can't even spellcheck?

[AmigaMac]

Originally posted by linescreen
I agree.......

PPC has got to be faster than x86 this year, or it has to go.

What about moving to the itanium?


Move to the Itanium?... you want to move to another slow architecture?! After making that statement I don't think performance is a priority to you!!

[xype]

1] The Macs are not _that_ slow, they're fine for most stuff but maybe 3D/games.

2] switching to x86-64 (aka Hammer) would be the dumbest thing to do - what if AMD runs out of luck and money and goes bankrupt (they do have problems and are betting their farm on hammer) at the end of 2003? does apple "switch" to IA-64?

3] if the rumored performance of the IBM 970 is 3/4 of what people say Apple will be fine off - and the 970 is made to scale easily.

4] you all switch to PC for what I care - I've been working with macs and currently work on a PC. and I am loosing too much time with fiddling with the machine and software, I'll go back to MacOS as soon as I can afford a new Mac (jan-feb).

[Josh A.]

3] if the rumored performance of the IBM 970 is 3/4 of what people say Apple will be fine off - and the 970 is made to scale easily.

You are dead on. This new PowerPC is based on IBM's Power4 architecture (which is kicking ass all over the place these days) and should be fairly amazing. Unfortunately for marketing, its clock speed probably isn't going to be much higher than what we see today, which might be difficult to sell even though its performance will trounce anything Intel has by then.

[daPhil]

Originally posted by linescreen
3) Design houses are moving to the pc....I have seen it hear in nyc.
Yes, i have seen the same thing in my town, our hardware supplier say they havent made a corporate Mac installation since this summer. Its all PC now, more bang per buck.

5) The mac really does not compare in performance to a new pc these days....os x is still sluggish at times compared to jaguar.
Agree, you can run W2K fine on a old PC while Jaguar wont even start on an older Mac. I dont think its usable with anything less than Dual 800 and >= 1gb ram

Don't get me wrong, I love apple...but there marketting sucks.
Dito.

[avkills]

Jaguar will not start on an old machine? What? Are you on crack or something? OS X runs fine on my iBook and my B&W w/400 G4. Both have the RAM maxed, but it is unix, unix loves lots of RAM.

I run all sorts of pro-apps like FCP, Photoshop and AfterEffects, and they all run good as well.

I've seen WindowsXP run on an old wintel box and it runs like crap with all the candy on, the only edge to it is you can turn the candy off.

IBM's PPC970 is going to kick some booty. I imagine that it would debut clocking in around 2Ghz. Early testing has shown that at 1Ghz it is nearly twice as fast as a 1Ghz G4. If IBM is right this chip @1.8Ghz will be just as fast as a 2.8Ghz Pentium at specINT2000 and specFP2000. Sounds like a winner to me. Not to mention it will still run 32bit PPC code. IBM would like nothing better than to watch Intel and Microsoft get it handed to them. IBM wants Apple to pound them hard in the desktop arena.

-mark

[linescreen]

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17837.html
above says shift, but no increase,,,and the shift is away from graphics people.

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-893232.html
cnet, says market share is shrinking.

http://www.wininsider.com/news/comments.aspx?mid=2347
puts market share at 2% and shrinking.

There are tons of articles about apple once again loosing market share.

And the reality is that you can do the graphics work on the pc, and they are so much cheaper now....that corporate sales are going to disapare if apple does not do something. I don't know what it is,,,,but we need speed, and cheaper pro models.

T

[AmigaMac]

Originally posted by daPhil

Agree, you can run W2K fine on a old PC while Jaguar wont even start on an older Mac. I dont think its usable with anything less than Dual 800 and >= 1gb ram

Dito.

What a bunch of horse$h!t! We run W2k here on Compaq DeskPros (PIIs/PIIIs 400 MHz) at work and they're DOG SLOW compared to my old iMac (G3 400 MHz) running Mac OS X (10.2)! W2k is pathetic in performance and XP isn't much better!!

[daPhil]

Originally posted by AmigaMac


What a bunch of horse$h!t! We run W2k here on Compaq DeskPros (PIIs/PIIIs 400 MHz) at work and they're DOG SLOW compared to my old iMac (G3 400 MHz) running Mac OS X (10.2)! W2k is pathetic in performance and XP isn't much better!!

When comparing old systems you have to use the same timeframe, when P3 400 came out the baddest Mac was a grey 200 mp, try running X on that... As for the performance on your Compaq boxes (besides that brand computers almost always have slow harddrives) its probably a RAM issue.

[MDA]

Originally posted by linescreen
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17837.html
above says shift, but no increase,,,and the shift is away from graphics people.

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-893232.html
cnet, says market share is shrinking.

http://www.wininsider.com/news/comments.aspx?mid=2347
puts market share at 2% and shrinking.

There are tons of articles about apple once again loosing market share.

And the reality is that you can do the graphics work on the pc, and they are so much cheaper now....that corporate sales are going to disapare if apple does not do something. I don't know what it is,,,,but we need speed, and cheaper pro models.

T

As someone who has the job of supporting the 100 Mac's in the ad agency I work for this is one of the most depressing threads I've read in a long time.

MDA

[AmigaMac]

Originally posted by daPhil


When comparing old systems you have to use the same timeframe, when P3 400 came out the baddest Mac was a grey 200 mp, try running X on that... As for the performance on your Compaq boxes (besides that brand computers almost always have slow harddrives) its probably a RAM issue.

No, they have 256 MB of RAM and when I was still only using 128 MB of RAM (on my old iMac) I still had better performance (well with 10.1, not 10.0... now that was DOG SLOW)!

Compaq PCs just plain suck!

[Frobozz]

Okay, so SQL Server by Microshaft is not on Mac, by MySQL is. So is Oracle. So what is Quark blathering about here? Are they trying to say that Apple's Xserve, or even their desktops, can do this? Well, I think that's hog-wash.

I haven't been in the publishing industry for 3 years now. When I left, InDesign was not available, but PageMaker and FrameMaker was. I really liked PageMaker, and I'm not sure why they scrapped it's name in sake of a new product name. Anyway, Quark was always one of those programs that was so bug riddled that it was barely usable. However, since I was still in college we had to learn the tools of the trade. What a monumental pain it could be to use Quark then-- and from what I've heard, now. Most everyone I know that is still in print-publishing uses InDesign now. Quark is dead.

[AikoAiko]

I have bee using InDesign quite successfully for a year and a half now and I love it. I did so out of necessity because I was not going to be dragging my system down with Classic Mode and livig with OS 9 was out of the question. But I was pleasantly suprised with the ease of use and powerful features. The only dependency is to find print service shops that support InDesign or to understand how to export files for shops that did not support it. By the way, it was not hard to find an InDesign-friendly shop. :) Also, InDesign opens up my Quark Xpress files beautifully, so I've been able to edit existing work with no trouble.

When Quark Xpress does arrive for Mac OS X, I will give it a try. But since I am quite happy with InDesign, there would have to be some extraordinarily compelling features in there for it to motivate me to switch back.

The reason I mention this is that if anyone had fears of upgrading to Mac OS X but was afraid to because of the lack of Quark support for Mac OS X, and didn't think InDesign would be a viable option from a workflow point of view, then here is a testimony of at least one happy designer who has found InDesign to compare favorably to Quark Xpress and is enjoying DTP production in Mac OS X full time.

[NuVector]

Originally posted by MDA
As someone who has the job of supporting the 100 Mac's in the ad agency I work for this is one of the most depressing threads I've read in a long time.

MDA
Fear not.

The links provided reflect Apple's global market share compared to total worldwide PC sales. Two things are going on here of note. First, some of the figures are wildly inaccurate (no way is Apple's global market share at or under 2%) reflecting the reporter's lack of understanding or sloppy analysis by the reporting agency. Second, these figures mostly reflect the shift in consumer and education sales.

The former market has been badly hit by the recession. The latter has seen a concentrated effort by Dell to take market share away from Apple (which has been very successful, by the way).

But none of this affects the publishing market in which Apple continues to have the lion's share of the market. Even the first link posted notes that there has been little shift in the graphics market.

Yes, ad revenues are down and some publications have closed their doors. In a recession, this is not surprising. Publishers run on razor thin margins and increases in paper costs combined with drops in subscription rates due to the the recession has meant retrenchment from previous expansions in the print industry. By no means, however, is publishing "dead". It isn't in the pink, but it's a long way from moribund.

Another point worth noting is that the only reliable "market data" Quark could have would necesarily be based on sales of it's own products. And what is happening there is that fewer Mac based publishers are upgrading and many are switching to InDesign. This doesn't mean publishers are switching to PCs, it means Mac publishers finally have a competitive product and can afford to stop supporting a company whose idea of customer satisfaction is that they should be satisfied with whatever Quark foists on them.

Quark is desperate to find a way to reverse sales declines and, unfortunately, is looking to do so without addressing the fundamental problems responsible for its declines: which is that when you buy their software you are forced to buy a piece of Fred Ebrahimi's paranoid and self defeating business philosophy in which customers are not to be trusted and quality runs a distant second to profits.

This is not news to insiders at Quark. Attempts to divorce Fred from day to day operations there have been spectacular failures, resulting in broken promises to publishers and a public relations debacle for the company. His "out of context" rant is typical of his attitude toward his customer base which is (in my opinion) directly responsible for the company's tenous position today.

As long as viable competitive products to XPress and QPS are offered by a well run company that understands the concept behind real customer support, I predict that Quark's revenues will continue to decline.

[primalman]

Originally posted by linescreen
We as mac users have to face some facts.

1) the market share of Mac's this year has continued to fall even with all the switcher ads. The mac market share is around 3% and falling.

2) There has been a huge trend in technology to standardize platforms, java, .net ect....

3) Design houses are moving to the pc....I have seen it hear in nyc.

4) If a company does more than just publishing, there Senior IT people may make the entire company PC. They feel it is easier to support....and it may be.

5) The mac really does not compare in performance to a new pc these days....os x is still sluggish at times compared to jaguar.

Don't get me wrong, I love apple...but there marketting sucks.

Where in this post do you talk about marketing? You are talking about performance and marketshare. I would argue that Apple's marketing is second to none in quality and style. Do you think dancing "bunnies" or butterflies riding bikes in NYC is better? Whatever.

BMW's marketshare is less than the Mac's by the way, does that mean we should all switch to Ford?

If you wanna use a crappy cheap PC with horrible color management and bad UI elements that make no sense and ask 6 differnet ways how your network is set up and has a higher per machine support cost, go ahead. It's your own funeral.

[MacusGeekus]

I'm betting that Quark's market data is bad. They may have been using incorrect ways of gathering it and are therefore making incorrect assumptions from it. The only part of the publishing world where Windows has gained is in in-house corporate publishing (where Windows IS/IT geeks force people to use Windows) and also newspapers. And newspapers are largely cross platform users. The main reason for newspapers using Windows is because of consolidation of smaller local papers into larger conglomerates usually owned by media conglomerates or banks. Most of these will also die out since the best automated publishing systems are based on Macs (AppleScript) and designers are still based on Macs. As a long time Quark user all I have to say is that Quark is already Dead.

[MacusGeekus]

NuVector's comments about Quark's data on sales made me think of something. I know very few designers or printshops who are buying Quark for the Mac. It's not because they are buying PCs. In fact they are buying more Macs than PCs. It's becaues they don't want Quark 5 (and many don't even want Quark 4). Adobe may see something similar to this soon. Most professionals I know are only buying Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 10 because they run native under Mac OS X. Many of them (including myself) would rather use an older version but we also want to move to MOSX now. Anyways, Quark's sales are going to be mostly PC right now because few in the Mac community have seen a reason to upgrade Quark. There have been no must have features added or performance improvements.

[MacusGeekus]

I think linescreen needs a little more experience in the creative markets. I have not seen a move to PC in either professional design or print shops. There has been an increase in use of PCs for design by untrained and inexperienced wannabe's who think if they buy a cheap PC and get some pirated software they can become designers too. But it just doesn't work. They have no knowledge of layout, typography, or color... let alone the more important aspects of communication. These are the people buying PCs (they also love Corel for some reason). Print shops are adding PCs to the mix because there are (and have always been) a lot of cheap business men who won't pay for good design work. They figure a secretary or the wiz kid from church can do it for them for nothing. These so called business men think that charging anything more than $20/hr is too much. Print shops still want the business so they add PCs so they can print these jobs as well. It's important to keep those presses rolling -- even if they are rolling crap! The only areas where I see PC making real inroads into professional design are in Web and multimedia publishing (where cross platform is critical).

[MacusGeekus]

From your post on Macs are Dying: "5) The mac really does not compare in performance to a new pc these days....os x is still sluggish at times compared to jaguar."

Ummm... OSX is sluggish compared to Jaguar? Jaguar IS OSX! By what logic do you make a statement comparing PC performance to Mac performance and then say that OSX is slower than itself? Did you mean to say that OSX is sluggish compared to Windows?

[MacusGeekus]

Several people have posted about the issue of Apple's marketshare (and also Quark's). This is something that always bugged me as well. Apple's marketshare has recently been calculated as between 2% and 5% (I really don't trust any of these number). The problem is that so far as I can tell, computers are the only industry where that marketshare (expressed as a percentage) is highly valued. Almost every industry uses marketshare percentages to help them guage their success, but in most other industries it is only one metric that is used. In fact it usually isn't even the most important metric used in measuring success of a company. Sales figures and profit margins are far more valuable. You can have a huge marketshare and still go out of business if your other sales, financial and marketing metrics are not good. You can have a very small marketshare and still be the most healthy and most profitable company in your market/industry if your other metrics are good. Why do we put such a huge value on marketshare in computers but in no other industry?

[Frobozz]

Originally posted by linescreen
They do suck, but explain that to the people who have the purchasing power....

one platform cost 3,500 and runs al the graphics apps

one platform costs 1,500 and runs allthe graphics apps, and all the other stuff i want my company employees to run.



Are you crazy? :-) Seriously, a Mac does not cost $3,500, first of all. A Mac DOES NOT COST MORE THAN A PC of comparable performance and features. That's all that matters to the designers, etc. Furthermore, you can get a perfectly capable Mac for $2,200 or so.

The Mac can also do, feature for feature, everything a PC can do in a heterogenous work place. Can you name anything that the Mac doesn't run that you need to run? If you company, like mine, has a couple of proprietary PC apps, use Virtual PC and be done with it.

Let's take the scenario of a web publishing house. True, it is slightly different than the print-publishing house, but this is from where my experience stems. The web publishing house can have Macs running OS X that the web designers and developers can have all their deployment web apps on: MySQL, Oracle, Apache, PHP, MacASP, and so forth. They can also administrate with the terminal or a GUI. It is a far more compelling reason to use the Macintosh in this scenario because all of the design applications, all of the productivity applications, and all of the deployment applications, can run on one machine. No other platform can do this.

Also, in one of the previous posts, someone mentioned that companies are trying to consolidate onto .NET and Java. First of all, .NET is a huge flop. Second, both Java (now) and .NET (near future) run on the Mac. So how does that prevent the Macintosh from competing?

The Macintosh has NEVER been more pervasive in the heterogenous company as it is now. Your IT directors love UNIX, your designers like the design apps, your bean counters and paper jockies like the productivity apps, and everyone likes the GUI. The speed, although marginally slower for long 3d rendering jobs, is not an issue for the average worker. The average worker in a company has a 2 year old machine, at best, with low specs. Only a select few actually need the high end performance. Granted, most of those people are the ones reading these posts, but raw horsepower is not the juggernaut of computeing that it used to be.

I've read no less than 3 articles from CES keynotes and company press releases than say the same story: "people are buying computers based on what they can do, not how fast they can do it." Why? because the machine they've had for 2 years is fast enough to do the mundane daily tasks of the average computer user. Furthermore, the Macintosh's marketshare is INCREASING finally. The reasons are obvious: people are sick to death of the frankenstein PC market and the constant invasion of privacy, security, and lack of usability. I have first hand seen several people in my company switch to a Macintosh because they liked OS X. None mentioned speed as being a problem for them, and they all have 1.x GHz Wintel boxes with XP.

[gopher]

All the lies and FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) are put to rest by this page:

http://www.macvspc.info/

If you doubt the viability of the Mac, the speed of the Mac, the compatibility of the Mac, go to the above page.

[daPhil]

Originally posted by gopher
All the lies and FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) are put to rest by this page:

http://www.macvspc.info/

If you doubt the viability of the Mac, the speed of the Mac, the compatibility of the Mac, go to the above page.

That page says Macs are better, good now i can put all my personal observations to rest and forget then. What do i know, i have only worked with both platforms for 5+ years... Please... I prefer to think for myself.

[Codemonkey]

Originally posted by daPhil


That page says Macs are better, good now i can put all my personal observations to rest and forget then. What do i know, i have only worked with both platforms for 5+ years... Please... I prefer to think for myself.

You're kidding right?

"Harumph. I got presented with a bunch of facts and I'm still going to sit here with my arms folded and tell you that unsubstantiated opinion beats facts any day of the week."

Nice try, cowboy.

[os4]

Originally posted by primalman


BMW's marketshare is less than the Mac's by the way, does that mean we should all switch to Ford?



Thank you, primalman! The first bit of reasonability in this whole thread.

"Marketshare" and any broad statistic are worthless information. People need to remember that Apple and Dell have been the ONLY profitable computer manufacturers over the past 18 months (excepting the most recent quarter). Apple's business is healthy and well-positioned for when the economy starts growing again.

[Josh A.]

First, let me say that I run Jaguar on an original Titanium... only 500mhz and 512mb of RAM, and it runs faster than the previous versions of OS X, which were usable to begin with. Not as fast as OS 9, but keep in mind that 9 only got so much faster because Apple had to optimize the hell out of it for Classic. The speed, anyway, has to be balanced against 9's lack of a command line and preference for crashing.

What I really wanted to point out is that it is a JOY to do web development on OS X. Finally I can truly develop and test locally, with the exact same environment (Apache/PHP/MySql) as our production servers. When I'm done I can run mysqldump to get a copy of the local database to upload to the server. I can edit scripts in BBEdit and hit reload in my browser without having to upload to another machine first. Yum.

[Josh A.]

I prefer to think for myself.

Hehehe... how is that working out for you?

[shadowfax0]

Originally posted by MacusGeekus
Apple's marketshare has recently been calculated as between 2% and 5% (I really don't trust any of these number)

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" -- Benjamin Disraeli

[ant]

quark dominated the dtp market now it is weak and indesign is stronger. Just think what could could happen to microsoft. does anyone know what they did to be. Quark sucks end

[Fall]

Hiya, I'm outta high school last year and have worked in a small print shop for about 10 months now.

I've been using Quark, and am by no means an expert.

But I never liked it, when I first started working in pre-press, I knew nothing of the program, and yes it works and all, but it's so crap!

There's nothing special about it, there's options which never fail to amaze me AREN'T THERE. I just get so annoyed at times thinking how long this program has been the norm, how long they program has never had a decent upgrade, and why it's taken so long for anyone (that's YOU adobe) to try and compete!

Unbelieveable, I'm sure InD2 isn't perfect, but I'd put money on it it does a lot of things better than Quark.

I use Quark out of necessity, but by no means by choice. I'd jump ship in the hope to use something better in an instant.

[spacehustler]

Originally posted by bluecell
That old argument.

Emulators? It wouldn't take much for developers to port to x86. All it would take is some recompiling.

Suicide is staying with an architecture that's not that's not properly maintained. For example, the G4.

I'm afraid you are the one bringing up an "old" argument. I haven't noticed a whole lot of optimizing compilers that automatically convert Altivec-specific C or assembly into x86 SIMD or whatever Intel / AMD uses. Now I haven't looked very hard, so maybe they are out there and work great. But since I can't imagine *any* market for this type of optimization, I strongly doubt it.

Let's assume I'm wrong (which I very well may be) and that there is at least one optimizing compiler suitable for the task of porting high end multimedia apps (graphics, video and audio apps which are the mainstay of the mac world) from PPC/Altivec to x86/SIMD. How good do you think the results will be from this "let the compiler figure it out" approach? Well, of course the results will vary drastically from app to app depending on the source code, but I'm certain that many companies will find the performance of this auto-optimized code unacceptable, to say the least. What then? It's called hand-coding, buddy - C and even assembly in some cases. And it will be not be quick or easy.

Now, it's possible that the windows versions of many of the apps in question could be harvested for their x86 SIMD-specific optimizations, thus cutting development time considerably.

My point is simply that porting the biggest and most powerful apps from PPC to x86 while maintaining top performance cannot be disregarded as a trivial task. The only people making this argument seem to base it on their experience of compiling a few UNIX apps on different processors, unaware that these apps rarely contain processor-specific source optimizations.

Anyway, I'm not going to pretend I know everything about this subject (not even close) but the fact that most UNIX apps are easy to recompile for different processors has little, if any, bearing on the question of recompiling mainstream Mac/PPC apps for x86.

[spacehustler]

Originally posted by linescreen
I agree.......

PPC was a great idea, and it is a product,,,,just not enough r and d went into it.


Do you even understand that x86 is early to mid '80's technology while the PPC is a modern processor with IBM, who is ahead of Intel in many areas of processor design and fabrication, virtually staking their future on the viability of the PPC? It goes without saying that IBM is performing mind-numbing amounts of "r and d" on the PPC.



Mac move to the x86 architecture makes sence.....


No, it doesn't. Read my post above, try porting a few apps in your spare time and let me know how it goes.


They could still sell hardware,,,i am sure there is something they could do to make themachines not boot windows, or other machines boot os x. Not that I agree with that at this point.


So nice of you to allow Apple to continue with one of the main focal points of their entire philosophy - i.e. *integrated* hardware and software. Without even considering the merits, apparently.


Apple needs to make some hard decissions...it is very much on the ropes this year, and I don't see a lot of people that understand this.


Actually, Apple is finally in a position to make some in-roads into WinTel's market dominance. With OS X, they've reached a kind of computing nirvana - superior reliability, ease-of-use, inter-operability, aesthetics, and leveraging of the massive inertia of open source development. So, yeah, now that they've made it through the all the hard times with their philosophy in tact and proven superior by a superior product, it's time to really start worrying about the future...



PPC has got to be faster than x86 this year, or it has to go.


Exactly why? A Pontiac Trans-Am is faster than an Audi TT. Does that make it better? I think it depends on what's important to you and what you actually do with your computer.


I have a dual 800,,,my 1.8 intel screams in comparison at 1/3 the ram. Photoshop is faster, everything is faster. Lets not even talk about surfing a webpage!!!

Apparently processor speed is the dominant factor in your computing experience, which is fine, but does not neccessarily apply to everyone else. I think processor speeds in general have reached a point where it is a secondary consideration, but that's just me. I would also take an Audi TT over a Trans-Am any day...

[daPhil]

Originally posted by Josh A.


Hehehe... how is that working out for you?

Fine thanks, i do retuching on a dual 800 G4 with 1.5gb ram and a Cheetah X15 disc. I do programming on a 2.533ghz P4 with 512mb ram and a Atlas 10k disk. Both of these are hooked up to a Eizo 21" FlexScan (i ditched my 22" Cinema, the Eizo whips it). Both computers kick ass, but the PC is still faster and cheaper. I love Mac though, hope they solve the performance issues soon.

[locovaca]

Originally posted by spacehustler

Exactly why? A Pontiac Trans-Am is faster than an Audi TT. Does that make it better? I think it depends on what's important to you and what you actually do with your computer.



Apparently processor speed is the dominant factor in your computing experience, which is fine, but does not neccessarily apply to everyone else. I think processor speeds in general have reached a point where it is a secondary consideration, but that's just me. I would also take an Audi TT over a Trans-Am any day...


I think the car analogy isn't quite the best because most of us don't ever drive cars above 75 MPH (or so), and the analogy loses a lot. Think of it this way:

If everyone could pilot a plane, for most people a simple single engine prop would do fine. Some wouldn't mind a Blue Angel, but there will always be people that need that stealth bomber, and even that won't be enough speed. For most people all they need is something that takes them around the countryside enjoying the air. But, for people that need every second they can get, they need that bomber, and they need it now. People that are bombing things, for example. The problem is that Apple is targeting the bombing market with a Blue Angel- ungodly fast to the common man, but is easily outdone (speed wise) by the B2. Not to bring out the DVE tests, but Apple isn't exactly the fastest plane on the deck anymore. For most people, this doesn't matter, but to the audience that apple is targeting, it does!

[MacusGeekus]

Yo, Locovaca... Though I agree with the sentiment of your posting, you should get a clue about aviation. A "Blue Angel" is not an airplane. It's a Navy Squadron that last I heard flew F/A-18s. Thunderbirds are the Air Force equivalent (flying F-16s). And a B2 StealthBomber is NOT a speed demon. In fact the F/A-18 is much faster. B2's travel in the subsonic (under the speed of sound) range. The F/A18 can go supersonic (Mach numbers, faster than sound, really fast). The F-15 is even faster. Sorry about being picky, but I'm not just a Mac geek. I'm also an aviation geek. BTW: Stealth planes don't go supersonic because the shape of a stealth aircraft is not very good for trans & supersonic flight. Also, supersonic aircraft are a little easier to spot in the infrared. Stealth aircraft like to go SLOW! It helps them stay stealthy.

[RogueLdr]

Originally posted by daPhil


When comparing old systems you have to use the same timeframe, when P3 400 came out the baddest Mac was a grey 200 mp, try running X on that... As for the performance on your Compaq boxes (besides that brand computers almost always have slow harddrives) its probably a RAM issue.

The Pentium III chip debuted on February 28, 1999 with speeds ranging from (IIRC) 400Mhz-500Mhz. The most current PowerMac available was the recently released (January, 1999) Blue & White G3 with speeds ranging between 300Mhz and 400Mhz.

RL

[e-coli]

Originally posted by daPhil


Fine thanks, i do retuching on a dual 800 G4 with 1.5gb ram and a Cheetah X15 disc. I do programming on a 2.533ghz P4 with 512mb ram and a Atlas 10k disk. Both of these are hooked up to a Eizo 21" FlexScan (i ditched my 22" Cinema, the Eizo whips it). Both computers kick ass, but the PC is still faster and cheaper. I love Mac though, hope they solve the performance issues soon.


okay...you're comparing computer speed by PROGRAMMING on one (essentially, typing text) and RETOUCHING IMAGES on the other!!!

could that get any more skewed? of COURSE the other machine seems faster.

sheesh. :rolleyes:

[locovaca]

Originally posted by MacusGeekus
Yo, Locovaca... Though I agree with the sentiment of your posting, you should get a clue about aviation. A "Blue Angel" is not an airplane. It's a Navy Squadron that last I heard flew F/A-18s. Thunderbirds are the Air Force equivalent (flying F-16s). And a B2 StealthBomber is NOT a speed demon. In fact the F/A-18 is much faster. B2's travel in the subsonic (under the speed of sound) range. The F/A18 can go supersonic (Mach numbers, faster than sound, really fast). The F-15 is even faster. Sorry about being picky, but I'm not just a Mac geek. I'm also an aviation geek. BTW: Stealth planes don't go supersonic because the shape of a stealth aircraft is not very good for trans & supersonic flight. Also, supersonic aircraft are a little easier to spot in the infrared. Stealth aircraft like to go SLOW! It helps them stay stealthy.

I apologize- I didn't want to try to come off as smart about planes 'cause I really don't know jack crap besides the airshows they put on :). Thanks for clearing that up. The spirit of my post remains, and considering that you'll never see a high end sports car peaked at the max of its power, it becomes a poor analogy because nobody can imagine a high end sports car going faster than another one, whereas most people have seen (if by accident) videos of planes flying at high rates of speeds and can compare the utility of a prop vs. jet engine. I dunno, it works better for me!

[shadowfax0]

**off topic**

BUT - Does anyone know when the P4 first made it's debut (@ 1GHz, if it ever was below), and what the current G4 speeds were at that time? (so mayb not *so* off topic, but I can't seem to find the info and don't want to start another thread, PLUS someone just gave info on the PIII above)

[PretendPCuser]

Switch to PC if you want, stay on the mac if you want, Quark will be out for OSX and plenty of people will love it and some will hate it, some will switch, some will complain that Apple needs more 1). Marketshare 2.) Faster processors 3.) Better Marketing 4). Some combination of all of these. InDesign will get better, more people will switch, Apple won't go out of business, Quark will not go out of business, design shops and prepress shops will migrate to PC and/or InDesign (Question, is InDesign offered for Windows?), some will stay. Guess what? This is what happens when you have a society of individuals. Deal with it.

It's the people that have to convince everyone else that their way is the best/fastest that keeps threads like this alive this long. It's also what keeps us free and at the same time binds us to certain societal dilemmas. Imagine if there were only one fastest, best way to do something. Business evolution would have snuffed out companies that we all use because they weren't the best or fastest, but they did make sense for a good number of people.

Does anyone convince or change anyone else's mind about anything in this type of forum? Like, "Oh yeah, i see your point! PCs are faster! I'm dumping what i'm comfortable with cause you said that they are faster and your link proved it to me!" or "Quark is better than InDesign cause PrePress houses only have Quark and they won't use ID" and finally "Apple is doomed cause the G4 is so old and slow that you can't even write email with it". Does anyone else see the ridiculousness of this? If your way works for you, but is slower than someone else's, it's invalid? Um, no.

So let's be a little more realistic and accepting of each other's points' of view. We're all entitled to our own, and are highly unlikely of persuading someone else to change their mind.

Finally, please close this thread if it doesn't stay on topic (like this post!)
:p

[linescreen]

This in from O'Reily

http://www.macdevcenter.com/lpt/a/2526

They expect to see the market share for mac to rise.....saying that number of mac users that have visited has doubled.

[@HomeNow]

I have been a designer with a company that designs and produces text books for all of the major publishers in the US for going on 8 years now. We have had between 25-60 production artists on staff over the past 4 years at our main site, and a satelite office with 10-20 (not sure of exact numbers at the moment). Add to that 12 designers, Imaging, Prepress, an Editoral, project management, and art research departments. We use a lot of Macs, some are handed down to other departments as they are moved out of design, imaging, pre-press, and production.

One number in the "market share" data that is missed a lot of times is the "installe base" of the computer in question. There are probably more "old" macs in service than a similar vintage PC in buisnesses that use computers becouse the software that is needed toget the work done still works on the old Macs, and the computers themselves still work good enough for the job at hand.

Where I work are still on OS X, and will be till sometime next year. This is due to timing on Apples latest "Up to date" program, and the current financial conditions of the market than anything else. However, there is also a reluctance to make large moves in software adoption becouse of the potential cost of incompatabilities that can crop up, remember the move to Photoshop 5 and the problems their new color engine created? So this year our IT department updated everyone to OS 9.2, and Apple, and Quark will have to wait on a fairly large chunk of change for an upgrade.

Now to the point, I have been using Quark for over 7 years. Recently I had the oppertunity to use Indesign on a "In House" research project. My impressions of it are great, to a point. It is a great design tool, not so great as a production tool. The reasons:

It is slow (possibly faster on OS X, but on OS 9 it is slow on my dual gig an a 10 page document, and some of the ones we work with push 30 pages). This is a major problem when Quark works faster on legacy machines in these economic times, and Apples hardware is not giving companies compelling reasons to upgrade.

Also, due to its PDF format, it "flattens" the pages when it prints. So if you use any of the bells and whistles, such as transparency, you kill your OPI workflow. Now we are back to taking 5-30+ minutes for a page clear off the production artists computer then more to wait for it to move across the network to the print server. This is a major problem when you are printing 100 pages that need to go out, and the same document built in Quark clears the computer in less than 10 minutes (all 100 pages).

Dont get me wrong I like Indesign, it has a great feature set, has strong AppleScript support, and with a PDF printing workflow it builds good print files. But right now it has some problems, at least in large document handeling.

Quark is not the winner either. Personally I like Quark 3.32 better than Quark 4.11, and I havent even had a chance to look at 5.0, we will probably skip it altogether unless our customers demand it (though right now they are researching Indesign). Quark does still have a strong install base, if not the best "upgrade" sales, and it works fairly predictably for print media.

[@HomeNow]

Originally posted by linescreen
This in from O'Reily

http://www.macdevcenter.com/lpt/a/2526

They expect to see the market share for mac to rise.....saying that number of mac users that have visited has doubled.

They might be right IF Apple can correct their main deficiency right now, processor speed. This is a real problem, particualarly in the high end markets that Apple targets. They really need the dual 970 as soon as possible. A replacement for the G4 in their consumer lines wouldnt hurt either. Or at mimimum a major improvement in the Motherboard to support the fastest video and memory that is available for the G4.

[MacusGeekus]

No sweat Locovaca. Ya, I'm inclined to agree with you that the car analogies have limits... and most of those limits are because of you said about people never driving over 75mph. I think the car analogies are still good for helping explain different computer hardware concepts to people who don't understand some of the computer processor terms. But you're right about the limits of real life driving speeds... which leads to something else... I read this book called "Why We Buy" (I'm from the graphics & advertising world). In it the author (who is an expert on how people shop -- he uses anthropolgy research techniques) made a comment that someday a computer company would get away from selling computers like we sell cars to teenage boys (speed) and move towards selling based on how useful the computer is. His entire description sounded like Apple's iApps and the Apple Stores. He noted that computer companies tend to sell just to young male attitudes and are ignoring the other half of the population -- women. I think he's right on track. He then talked about similar problems in the auto industry and the music industry (both of which he said were about the most backwards industries marketing-wise).

[raintalk]

Originally posted by @HomeNow


They might be right IF Apple can correct their main deficiency right now, processor speed. This is a real problem, particualarly in the high end markets that Apple targets. They really need the dual 970 as soon as possible. A replacement for the G4 in their consumer lines wouldnt hurt either. Or at mimimum a major improvement in the Motherboard to support the fastest video and memory that is available for the G4.

Or lower their prices to the value point that their current processors and memory offer. Get people to use the current OS and when they can come out with faster processors - users who like it will likely upgrade.

[jvaska]

okokokokokokok...I WIN!

no...i'm just sad reading all of this...

i'm a designer of 10 years now...and i'm running off to europe soon to start a new office...on a new continent...and we'll see what happens...

but my business partner (the one who controls the money - i don't relate work and money very well)...tells me we are getting brand new PC's with the largest flat monitors he can find...i'm pretty sure he's joking...but he would do it in a second if i let him...

MY macs (unfortunately G4's argh! - i'd like a G5 please)...will be making the trip and will be poised for action on foreign soil...

anyways...i think the marketing data is clearly inverted...we're at OSX...ALOT of people are sitting on the sidelines for this thing to shake out the bugs...and also for the new OSX software to do the same...people aren't buying quark for two reasons:

1 - quark is boring (ID is slowly coming of age)
2 - OSX...it's got to be killing them...nobody is buying Quark OS9 software and nobody is certainly buying Q.OSX software they can't buy...

3 (for added value) - the comment about quark and paranoia...oi vey...if it was ever bad it's got to be out of control by now...i can't stand their company culture one bit...i could say more but i won't...

to the guy who made the comment that if we are still using mac's we aren't concerned one bit about power...DAMN STRAIGHT...while i have my own little tweaks with the mac from time to time, i'll stick with apple any day for the overall reliabilty, usability and quick fixability ANY day...yer a chump! bring it on...

now i'm happy again...mac isn't back...it never left!

[atomwork]

Originally posted by jeffbunch
mangoman: You're right about IDv1 sucking a lot, but I haven't seen enough improvement to switch. I keep starting projects with ID, but end up completing them in Quark. I'm desperate for a OS X app, but just not that desperate. The interface for ID, while the same as Photoshop/Illustrator, is way too jumble for me and I have a dual monitor setup. If they had a measurements pallette like Quark maybe then I'd switch but I keep getting lost in the sea of palletes when I want to change. Document layout is different than photoediting/illustrations and should have it's own purpose-specific interface.

And before the negative responses, I'm not a Quark lover by any stretch. The company sucks in the customer service department and is such a quirky company to deal with, considering what they charge for their product. But it works, and works well. On paper, ID looks better by far, but I'm talking about the real world. The majority of people I know use Quark instead of PageMaker/InDesign and they're not switching anytime soon. I give them the selling points of ID but you can take Quark from their cold dead hands.

Quark spanked Aldus (original PageMaker) when it was king, maybe Adobe will return the favor, but that won't be for a long time. People will just stay with OS 9 and Quark because it's what they know until something compelling enough comes along. (soon hopefully)


Kid Red Ditto on the switching to Windows part. What BS!!



Don't really go there. Just open both programs side by side. Not only the newer, better and easier interface of InD will amaze good designers but the freedom of useability is in favor or InD. I do unserstand people they worked long time with quark. It must be hard to give up their world, but why not talking something new and easier to handle app. May be its too hard to uses for Quark people since they only have 10% of the functions that InD offers.

Give me a break. IF Quark don't kick up a fireworks with its 6 version i don't see a bright future. And after I see how they DON'T care about OS X, i am even happy if they go down.

[@HomeNow]

... Just open both programs side by side. Not only the newer, better and easier interface of InD will amaze good designers but the freedom of useability is in favor or InD...

I have had both of them open, and although InDesigns interface is more modern, I dont think it is neccessarely better than Quarks. First of all, ther is pallet overload. A 20-22" monitor is no longer large enough for all of the pallets that you have. An experienced Quark user does not need all of those pallets open all of the time, becouse they can call up the appropriate formatting menues with key combinations. I admit that I have not used ID long enough to learn all of its keyboard shortcuts, and that might help, bet more is not neccessarelly better when it comes to pallets.

[primalman]

Originally posted by @HomeNow


I have had both of them open, and although InDesigns interface is more modern, I dont think it is neccessarely better than Quarks. First of all, ther is pallet overload. A 20-22" monitor is no longer large enough for all of the pallets that you have.… but more is not neccessarelly better when it comes to pallets.

AMEN! Adobe has some sort of pallet fetish I don't understand. And the KB shortcuts, the key combinations are freaky, not much sense being made with those.

[jayscheuerle]

Quark vs. ID2

1) Features - ID2
2) Responsiveness - QXD
3) Nativity - ID2
4) File acceptance - QXD
5) WSIWIG - ID2
6) Reliability of RIP - QXD
7) Intuitiveness (for PSD & ILL users) - ID2
8) Workspace - QXD
9) Opening/working with archived QXD files - QXD
10) Customer Service - ID2

These are 2 good programs. This board tends to lean towards Mac fanaticism, which definately gives the not toward native apps as well as companies that are not openly hostile to Apple while being excessively coddling of the Wintel Sector. All I see Quark doing here is stirring up a lot of hatred among the once faithful. Talk about your bad marketing.... - j

[Wash!!]

Plain and simple it sucks.
I wouldn't touch Quark with a 10' pole
for most my projects before InDesign I was using Freehand but even freehand gets slow with 20 pages + then I had to use Quark :mad: but here comes InDesign to save the day, I use it once and I was hook.

F... Quark and that response really means "F... all the Mac Users you take what we have and like it"

my two Cents!!

Wash

[Dandee]

The problem in my company is that we need productivity (newspapers). If Indesign is a 100% program, we only use 10% of it. The rest of the functionality of the program we never use. The same with Photoshop and Illustrator. With Quark we use about 80% of the program (vs 4.11). So Indesign IS a excellent competitor to Quark (and often for Designers a winner) but in my business not very handy.

[TheInevitable]

I love Quark. I feel like I'm a master of the program. There is nothing I can't do. I am a human Quark manual. It holds a very special place in my heart.

But then again, I've been using it for years, I have not committed to OSX yet, and when I had my ID experience, it was version 1.5 (which sucks).

Although Quark does need to go OSX (and so do I), I like using Quark as my excuse for not movin on up. When Quark goes OSX, I will no longer have an excuse. Then I will have to fork out cash to upgrade Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, Jaguar, Dreamweaver, Flash, etc. And the thing that sucks is that I had upgraded just before all the current upgrades.



On the subject of Quark's clients switching to PC:

I began to see this trend when I was working for a printhouse a couple of years ago. Available software was the problem, but it wasn't Quark's fault. The new RIPs (CreoCytex) that we were getting for our printers required a PC. We didn't have much choice. I think that the sooner Mac and it's software developers become unified in OSX the sooner that Mac will be able to regain the market lost.

[mathyoo]

Originally posted by jeffhalmos
And InDesign is not a better app than XPress. Not even close. It's far slower and very clunky and unrefined. Has ANYONE found their rhythm with this thing yet?

Yes, InDesign is a little slow and clunky, but it's nowhere near as slow and clunky as running Xpress in Classic Mode, and I'm not going to reboot to OS9 just to use Xpress-EVERY other app I have, including all the Adobe and Macrmedia products is OSX compatible, so it's just too much hassle to use Xpress. On top of that, I love a lot of the new features in InDesign (can you say "multiple undoes"?) and I think I'm actually nearly at the comfort level with InDesign after using it for 9 months that I was with Xpress after using if for 10 years. But then, I'm a designer, not a publisher, so the publishing tools might be a little hinkier to use. For designer, though, InDesign is so far superior to Xpress that it's not even funny. I doubt that Xpress 6 will even bring them to the level of InDesign 2, and by the time Xpress 6 is released, we'll have InDesign 3 to use...

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by mathyoo


Yes, InDesign is a little slow and clunky, but it's nowhere near as slow and clunky as running Xpress in Classic Mode....For designer, though, InDesign is so far superior to Xpress that it's not even funny...

ID2 has a superior feature set, but there is little difference running Quark in the Classic mode except for some screen-redraw issues (very clunky there). I find ID2 to be barely usable on an older 450mHz machine (molasses), where Quark seems just as instantaneous as it did in 9. I'm sure part of this problem lies with OSX in general, but a large portion is because ID2 is doing so much more in terms of better previews and transparency (if you want it to. Even in the roughest mode, it's still a dog).

I really want to get to know ID2 better, but it really is useless on a 450mHz G4. At what speed does it start to become tolerable?

[mangoman]

I've been running it on a 933 Quicksilver and it's schmoov like ExLax. But I'm spoiled like that.

Anyhooo, my buddy's running it on a 600+ mhz G4 (can't remember the exact speed) and he's an ID monster. Says it's good for him.

Don't know if that helps....

[mathyoo]

Also to note: I live in Denver and personally know about a dozen people who used to work for Quark, and they all say the same thing-that Quark, especially upper management and development, all hate Xpress. They all want to work on newer projects instead of rehashing the same one, even though it's their bread-and-butter app. That probably has more to do with Quark dragging it's feet with upgrades than anything else. One of the people I know-a good friend, actually, used to be the managing editor of X-Ray magazine, and is now working as an independant writer for several different software companies, including Adobe. His primary task for them is to evaluate InDesign and write about it, and he was extremely critical of it until the 2.0 release. Around that time, he started trying to convince me to at least try the demo, so I did and was an instant convert. He's actually running a workshop at MacWorld on how to switch from Xpress to InDesign too. One of the things that really convinced me to switch was his opinion-he's one of the few people I've known that knew more about Xpress than I did, but the more he worked with InDesign the more impressed he was with it, and I have to say that I agree. I think that Quark just went for far too long with no real competition, so they became slack and lazy-how long was it between 3.32 and 4.0? No other software company goes that long without major upgrades, and they were notorious for their horrible tech support, but suddenly that changed when InDesign was released...