Adobe Fights For Marketshare

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May, 2000 by Bob Moseley

Quark's rival expects its latest version to have market dominance in three years, but users are not so certain.

After receiving mixed reviews from the magazine industry on its original InDesign page-layout software, Adobe Systems is back again in another attempt to challenge Quark Inc. as the dominant software tool in production departments. In April Adobe released an improved version, InDesign 1.5.

While some graphic artists say the original InDesign version was an improvement over Quark, it was not significant enough to make them want to switch. Shortcomings included excessive hardware requirements, weak trapping features, the inability to create text on a path, and color controls that needed rethinking.

But InDesign 1.5 addresses the bugs and adds new features. The hardware power requirements are still relatively high, but 1.5 has added text on a path, built-in trapping options and an improved color interface that allows users to drag and drop colors and display small or large color swatches.

Fighting market resistance

In 1987, QuarkXPress hit the market as revolutionary page-layout software, and within three years it had supplanted Adobe's Pagemaker as the preferred layout tool. Adobe's first version of InDesign, which was released in September 1999, failed to break Quark's stranglehold on the market. Quark is used by approximately 80 percent of all magazine publishers. IflnDesign is destined to change the landscape, as some suggest it will, it's a landscape that has been resistant to change. Many magazines seem entrenched--and relatively content-- with Quark.

"We just upgraded to QPS second version [2.0] this year, which was no small task. We're happy with it," says Jennifer Mayer, senior production manager for Disney Magazine Publishing.

Others are willing to give InDesign a look, but aren't rushing out to buy it. Greg Baugh, production manager for Birmingham, Alabama-based Vulcan Publications, says his company has attended seminars and is "exploring" InDesign. "We're currently trying a demo version, but we haven't printed anything on it yet. We now use QuarkXpress with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. We have no immediate plans to switch; if we do, it will be years down the road."

The Adobe InDesign package starts at $699. Through the end of May, the company is offering a $29.95 upgrade from its 1.0 version to 1.5. Still, many publishers mention cost and training as deterrents to change. "We have about 50 Quark users who would all need to be changed, so there's huge expense and training involved," Baugh says.

Banking on the future

If InDesign has a long way to go, Adobe, citing improved capabilities in its 1.5 version, nonetheless remains confident and hypes itself as "the future of professional publishing." "Within three years, we think we'll have majority share of the market," says Becky Ross, a spokeswoman for the San Jose, California-based company.

Frank Romano, an industry expert and professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, predicts that within three years 30 percent of magazines will be using Adobe InDesign instead of Quark. Romano, who has written four books on Quark and published InDesign in Detail last November, cites InDesign's flexibility as a reason why a significant number of magazines will return to Adobe. InDesign proponents tout features such as integration with Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator software, giving art directors the advantage of a common interface and shortcuts when designing pages. InDesign also opens up QuarkXPress files.

"InDesign is a much more modular type of program. It's 90 percent plug-ins. That's the key to the whole program, Romano says. "From a typography standpoint, the hyphenation and justification program does a superior job. You no longer have to manually kern text or rebreak pages. And InDesign can get you to PDF [printer description files] more effectively. Also, you can use Quark shortcuts with InDesign 1.5."

Romano is hard-pressed to identify any failures in InDesign 1.5, which boasts 80 new features and 180 enhancements of existing features inversion 1.0. "There are remarkably few bugs. The only thing is there are so many pallets you need a gigantic screen to handle them. But you don't have to use every pallet," he says.

As InDesign 1.5 hits the market, Quark, based in Denver, is targeting the end of the year for the release of its XPress 5.0 version, which touts print and Web layout capabilities and beefed up PDF support. Many art directors are sticking with Quark, but one industry insider sees that changing. "Quark traditionally has had trouble upgrading its products, and a lot of people are fed up," says the graphic arts specialist. "In the long term, both will be successful. It just won't be a Quark one horse town anymore."