There is no doubt that the publishing market is increasingly heating up. Quark is revving up communicating around Version 7 of its flagship product due later this year, while Adobe's InDesign is experiencing increasing traction in the market. But it may well be that the biggest problem for Quark is the Creative Suite 2 as a whole rather than InDesign on its own.

The typical design and publishing workflow consists of three core applications, the page layout program (in most cases QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign), a photo retouching program (you guessed it, Photoshop) and a PostScript drawing package (predominantly Adobe Illustrator). The better these applications work together, the more productive is the page production process.

In recent years, application integration for design and publishing has become a strong trend in the market. Just two or three years ago, professionals were happy to rely on standard file formats such as TIFF or EPS to place illustrations in page designs. As an example, as key applications (think Photoshop and Illustrator) have become standards in their own right, the use of native file formats in a design has become a must for a design application.

Is Adobe redefining creative worlflow? Click here to read more.

But Adobe has managed to push the integration of its key applications much further than simple access to native file formats, and that's exactly where Quark will feel increased competitive pressure from Creative Suite 2.

Take color management for instance—always a thorny issue when different applications are involved: Adobe now allows synchronization of color management profiles and preferences across all applications. By comparison, QuarkXPress uses a subtly different approach to color management than Adobe's applications do, and as a result the reliability of screen display is often less than perfect.

Likewise, moving from one application to the other has become more streamlined. Adobe Bridge is an approach for tying together the key applications in the creative workflow that will be hard to match for Quark. Switching between applications from different vendors is inherently less productive than staying within a coherent environment.

A designer who moves from QuarkXPress to Photoshop and back has to make a mental switch between different user interface approaches and keyboard shortcuts; Adobe has been working for years to standardize user interface elements to some extent. In any case, from a user perspective, the prospect of a tightly integrated work environment is attractive, whatever his preferences in terms of page layout software.

And then there is the price element, which has its impact as well: Users who own Photoshop can upgrade to the complete Creative Suite relatively cheaply, while QuarkXPress users will still need to get an upgrade to Illustrator and Photoshop in addition to the license for their page layout software.

Adobe will update InCopy. Click here to read more.

It will be interesting to see how Quark will respond to this challenge. Clearly, the company has set out to match InDesign's core technology advantages in the next major upgrade. The company has several ways of bringing workflow features to counterbalance Adobe's recent announcements: Quark could for instance roll some of its QPS (Quark Publishing Server) technology into QuarkXPress 7. Time will tell, but one thing is obvious: The publishing market has definitely become quite lively.

Andreas Pfeiffer is founder of The Pfeiffer Report on Emerging Trends and Technologies.