QuarkXPress 7 ships, not Universal yet
updated 08:50 am EDT, Tue May 23, 2006
Quark ships QuarkXPress 7
Quark today announced the release of QuarkXPress 7, the newest upgrade to its flagship product for publishing. Debuting worldwide, it offers features that promote better design, faster production, and more efficient collaboration. Although the company had begun testing a native version for Intel Macs earlier this year, the current shipping version runs under the Rosetta emulations environment--with a Universal Binary patch expected later this year. "This powerful upgrade combines new and enhanced design features with multi-channel publishing, collaboration, and job-driven workflow capabilities to deliver simply faster creative development for print and Web publishing. Through Composition Zones, Job Jackets, transparency, OpenType, Unicode, and many other new features, QuarkXPress 7 makes it easier for creative professionals to work together, optimize design, and minimize production errors. QuarkXPress 7 enables efficient and consistent desktop design, collaboration, and production." The full version is $750. [updated: Intel-native Universal Binaries are expected later this year and pricing added]
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Joined: May 2005
Well, that was fast!
I would not be surprised if AAPL jumped 10% on this news. As with the last transition (OS9 to OSX), it wasn't until Quark moved to OS X that people started migrating in large numbers. It is funny, though, how it took almost ten years for Quark to move from v4.x to 5; then it took about 3 from 5 through 7. Nothing like some healthy competition to light the fire under your heels.
All we need now is an Intel PowerMac (Mac Pro?), and perhaps, Adobe to finish their Photoshop/Illustrator combination. This bit of news from Quark might push them a bit to deliver sooner.