New Contenders in the Editorial Systems Market - Impressed

Editorial Systems
about 6,000 seats worldwide, configured with systems
from CCI, Scoop, Enator and others. In the U.S., where
Tansa has reseller agreements with AMC (Atex), Saxotech
and Unisys, it has six customers (all using Saxotech
systems). Its new U.S. office is in Lakewood
Ranch, Fla. The director of operations is Robert Laszlo,
formerly with Saxotech.
Conclusion: Editorial System Market
in Transition
For most of the history of electronic magazine production,
shopping for an editorial system hasn’t involved
very many choices. The market has been dominated by
two dynasties. First there was Atex, which parlayed its
early work with U.S. News & World Report into a
booming business serving more than 700 customers
producing an impressive array of magazine titles, as
well as newspapers. But when Atex failed to adapt to
desktop technology in the 1980s, its empire started to
crumble as customers wanting new technology slowly
drifted elsewhere. (Atex reports that 10 of the old J-11
systems are still in use.)
As Atex’s market slipped away, there were many
alternatives for newspaper customers, but there
weren’t many suppliers targeting magazines, which
opened the way for Quark to extend its line from the
single-user Xpress product to the multiterminal Quark
Publishing System. Quark, which offered the attraction
of a status-based workflow feeding the familiar Xpress
pagination engine, built up its own dynasty that rivaled
For most of the history of electronic magazine
production, shopping for an editorial system
hasn’t involved very many choices.
Atex’s in number of systems in use.
Twelve years after the launch of the Quark system
(renamed QPS Classic), the industry appears ready for
another transition. Not unlike Atex, Quark has jeopardized
its position by relying far too long on old technology.
In fact, the “new” QPS Classic 3 still looks a
lot like earlier QPS systems with its proprietary database,
its lack of a browser interface for reporters and
other personnel, and its inability to communicate data
easily with the outside world.
Quark has an answer to most of the shortcomings
of QPS Classic in its “upgrade” system, QPS Enterprise,
which is based on newer technology but has a
price tag to match its Enterprise label. So far, very few
customers have chosen to upgrade QPS Classic systems
to the Enterprise level. (Quark declines to disclose the
number of Enterprise customers it has.)
Why can’t Quark update its architecture with a
“new-generation” QPS Classic to compete with the
new breed of systems of today? Maybe it can. And
maybe it is already doing so. At least, Quark reportedly
has another alternative on the drawing board, the
QPS Plus midlevel system mentioned two years ago as
part of the company’s overall strategy. However, until
Quark discloses a launch schedule and the system’s
specifications, the industry will remain skeptical. As
one integrator told us, “Quark has been spinning this
for two years now… They could build it, but who
would buy it?… And it would severely undercut their
new flagship product, QPS Enterprise, so why would
they bother?”
Meanwhile, time is being lost now that Modulo,
Woodwing and others have attractive products to offer
to QPS owners desperate for an upgrade, as well as to
other customers.
InDesign: the other issue. Although QPS Classic’s outdated
architecture has presented companies such as
Modulo, Softcare, Van Gennep, Baseview and Woodwing
with great opportunities, there is another issue
facing Quark: the fact that nearly every multiuser system
marketed for magazine or newspaper use offers
InCopy and InDesign either as the only choice or as an
alternative to CopyDesk and Xpress. Since it’s difficult
to imagine Quark supporting InDesign, Quark faces
the unenviable task of trying to convince its customers
that all they need are CopyDesk and Xpress.
Who will have the next dynasty? With new systems
on the market and being put into production use, and
with additional suppliers eagerly eyeing the QPS
upgrade market, will any of these modern systems gain
the upper hand and build the next dynasty? Or will a
few suppliers divide the market in much the way that
the newspaper market has been split among myriad
suppliers?
It’s too soon to make a prediction, but Modulo and
Woodwing have brought new options to the market,
with important strengths.
Modulo has some key advantages, including its
long experience with the QPS base, which provides a
good entrée for reaching new prospects, and its ability
to offer QPS customers the choice of Xpress or InDesign,
which allows them to start with a Quark system
and ease into InDesign later. Modulo also has its deal
with Quasar for interactive remote composition,
among other capabilities, which hasn’t been demonstrated
publicly yet but might turn out to be significant.
Woodwing, which has already recouped much of
its development costs through sales of Smart Connection
Light and Pro systems, has a huge price advantage
and an architecture that supports an ease of customization
that will appeal to certain customers. Woodwing
also has a unique system for remote composition using
actual InDesign files. Also to its advantage is its long
experience working with Adobe software.
The accompanying table shows the key features of
these new systems as well as other competitors in the
magazine market.
22 October 6, 2004 • The Seybold Report • Analyzing Publishing Technologies