I received a mailing from Quark with the headline that suggests that QuarkXPress's new features would make Adobe "cry like a baby," as an added bonus.

I opened it and scratched my head as I read it. What is Quark thinking? What makes them think I would be happy to see Adobe "cry like a baby"?

There were also a couple of oblique references to drug use that made me wonder what kind of demographic studies Quark has been doing. ("QuarkXPress 6.5. The most fun you've had since sniffing markers.")

In case Quark is interested in one user profile for its statistics, here's mine.

I'm a middle-aged male who has been using QuarkXPress since 1987.

I began with PageMaker in 1986; but jumped to Quark as soon as it appeared.

Overall, I've been pleased with the capabilities of QuarkXPress.

Bugs have appeared, but there usually has been a way to work around them, and QuarkXPress has been the industry standard for a lot of very good reasons.

Quark and Adobe compete for students' loyalty. Click here to read more.

But many of us have been disappointed that Quark has been slow to offer improvements to their product.

Meanwhile, QuarkXPress is the program that I've opened nearly every day.

Along with being a QuarkXPress user, I'm an Adobe user. Is that the rub? Is Quark so paranoid about InDesign that they want QXP users to join them in taking shots at Adobe?

I like Adobe. For example, Illustrator (the first version) is what persuaded me to buy a Mac in the first place. And Photoshop: What an incredible program! For many years, I've been creating graphics in Photoshop that find their way into QuarkXPress files.

There's no way I would be without Photoshop. No, I don't want to see Adobe "cry like a baby." And, I'm wondering if there have been meetings late at night at the Quark headquarters in Colorado, where the executives have been crying like babies.

The mailing (which consists of six cards, much like oversized playing cards) lists the new features offered in QXP 6.5. Great! If Quark has new features that will help it compete with Adobe InDesign, so much the better.

Let Quark throw it on the table and see if people upgrade. But frankly, I'm put off by companies that try to malign the competition.

When InDesign was introduced, many people called it a Quark killer. Maybe. Maybe not.

When QuarkXPress was introduced, it should clearly have been a PageMaker killer. But that didn't happen.

And it's entirely possible that QuarkXPress and InDesign will coexist for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that fact that we tend to get comfortable with our programs and find it difficult to set aside the time to learn new ones.

Sure, it's about market share, but surely there are other ways to increase market share.

Frankly, for me (admittedly a graybeard among designers), the Quark mailing was offensive and cost them some respect in my view.

Others may feel differently, but in the long run being hostile is counter-productive.

Kenneth Rice is a multimedia instructor at Viewmont High School in Bountiful, Utah. He has been using QuarkXPress since 1987.

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