With version 2 and now CS, InDesign has leapt eons ahead of Quark which has no hope at all of catching up. But it seems that most professional designers are still happy with QuarkXpress 4.1 and see little need to even buy Quark 5 or 6, let along do something as drastic as migrating to InDesign.
As an InDesign user for the last three years I am curious to know what is Indesign's real market share. Is there a real upswing--or is it just that designers and print shops are just saying oohs and aaahs about InDesign but are mostly afraid to switch?
Even those who defend sticking with Quark rarely express happiness. QX 5 & 6 do little to inspire excitement.
In my experience, Designers are the ones moving to indesign. Creative types see something they can sell in new features and the "Gee Whizz" factor. Prepress and Production types who actually have to make tese things work are the ones most likely to hold back.
Argue all we like, there is still a large number in the industry who don't mind leaving well enough alone. Fear is a big factor. So is resentment that they have to upgrade expensive RIPs that work fine with every other piece of their workflow.
Designers tend to work in smaller groups and have more confined setups. Usually a computer, DTP apps, Scanner and printing device.
Production workflows have all that to, plus asset management systems, Font licences for many seats, and coordinated work force who must, by definition, all be runnning in the same direction.
OS X has heftier System requirements than OS9, so buy new Macs. QX6 and ID cS only run on X, so upgrade. Adobe want everyone to buy new licences for Opentype. Multiply that cost for the nuber of users.
It adds up quickly. When times are tough, funds for upgrades and user training are the first to stop. No one disputes Indesigns advanced features.
What is unclear is if the industry really needs or wants then right now. Some say keep up or be left behind... Others say where the majority are is the place to be.
Only you can decide what is best for your business right now.
Surley sticking with Quark 4 won't be an option for long. Isn't OS9 dead? As for purchasing Quark 6, why would you choose that over InDesign? Both require upgrading to OSX. Why settle for fewer features.
I've met reluctance from some of my clients to change to InDesign but we are now exploring the possibility of supplying our printers with PDF files. From my experience PDF seems to be the new trend, so whatever application you use PDF may be the ultimate output file.
I made the switch to Indesign when V.2.0 was launched and have had a very positive experience. After the initial learning period my productivity has increased. Clients love the work that I'm producing with InDesigns new features. I'm not just talking about transparency features either. Complex tables, beautifully spaced text. I've even had editors/proof readers commenting on 'the beautiful typesetting'.
I've worked with Quark since it was first released and with InDesign since its first Beta release. I now do the majority of my work in InDesign. I don't think Quark will ever catch up to InDesign's beautiful type handling & other built-in design features.
Our primary business is large format printing and the files we run are supplied in Illustrator, Freehand, Photoshop, Pagemaker, Corel Draw, Quark or InDesign - in fact, we also manage to make PowerPoint, Word and Excel print properly as well.
We have noticed that the majority of our clients who have decided to upgrade their software have bypassed upgrading to Quark and jumped right into InDesign CS. We are receiving fewer Quark files & more InDesign files as time passes.
Our new RIPs have no problem at all processing InDesign CS files. Some of our older RIPS initially gave us grief but we have discovered that saving the fonts as outlines & saving the eps files as ASCII Postscript Level 3 lets the files run flawlessly through our system. It required a little bit of R&D on our part to make it all work, but it's been well worth it.
One of the jobs I produce in InDesign is a magazine which can run to as many as 72 pages. InDesign does a wonderful job preflighting the files. I give the printer pdf files using his PPD and the job goes smoothly, quickly and prints perfectly. He really doesn't care what program I use to create the job or the pdfs - he just likes the fact that the pdfs are error free.
I just got one of the Mac catalogs and checked out Quark prices.
Quark 6 new in the box: $860 Upgrade from 4: $300
Adobe CS bundle The Premium edition combines full versions of Adobe Photoshop® CS, Adobe Illustrator® CS, Adobe InDesign® CS, Adobe GoLive® CS, and Adobe Acrobat® 6.0 Professional software with innovative Version Cue™ file management features, a smooth Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) workflow, and valuable training resources.
New: $1230. Upgrade from Photoshop: $750
Other upgrades: Photoshop CS - $170 Ilustrator CS - $170
Upgrade to Quark 6, Photoshop CS, and Illustrator CS: $1200 Upgrade to IDCS, Photoshop CS, and Illustrator CS, and Acrobat 6: $750
Number are a wonderful thing. Someone who has switched to ID exclusively will say that 100% of their work is in ID. Someone hanging back in QX4/OS9 will say that 0% is in ID. People who offer both will quote some number inbetween.
Statistics can be made to represent anything you want. Adobe could, if it wanted to, release the total of units produced as market share, or even the number of units sold.
It could even argue that number higher because logically some users have found ways to share their copy. {I do not condone that behavior}
Does the market that is being shared only contain certain selling versions, or all passed versions. The idea of a percentage of market share something that would be more of an estimateof perception rather than a quantifiable absolute.
The number of computers that QX4 is installed on is probably 3-5 times Quarks sales figures. It had no real copy protection aside from checking that multiple serial numbers were not on the same network.
That is probably a big reason for software companies attemps to validate and authenticate its installations. Fair game too, they have to protect their interests.
The real question here is not market share, but How much switching to or adding support for Indesign is going on. As a new Kid on the block, Indesign only has 2 ways to go.
It can increase in usage or dift into obscurity... I would bet on the former.
But the thought of a sudden knock out blow that will kill Quark... The longer it takes, the less likely that seems. We live in a 2 professional Pagelayout universe now. Get used to it. And there are a couple of wannabe's circling.
Pgemaker and Corel are fading, MultiAd Creator is suprisingly still around.
One of the things I now do is help install X and ID for printers. Went from 0 in 2003 to 4 in 2004. This strictly from word-of-mouth. I just sent out a mailing to 100 printers within 50 mile radius. We'll see what happens.
I am heartened to see so much response to my query. But my question was what is InDesign's market share over Quark, and whether there is any significant uptrend.
I agree with just-a-mac-guy that statistics could be misleading, but surely there would be some?
And I told you, don't hold your breath waiting for an official answer. Quark is a privately held company and is certainly not going to release any sales figures.
Neither company has released any sales figures. However, several large design schools have completely dropped Quark and adopted InDesign. The same can be said for several publications and ad agencies.
Hmm. For a marketshare comparison, I can respond with this: (NOTE: neither official nor comprehensive...)
I recently had a conversation with a printer I deal with. When I moved to InDesign 2 last year, I was the only person asking him about it. Recently he comented that over 60% of his business is now coming in as InDesign (no, not just me ^_^). In fact, he has already upgraded to and is receiving jobs for IDCS. I am still on ID2 although the CS upgrade is slated for next quarter.
Since I have been here (a little over a year), I think I have had only one or two people bring InDesign files. The rest is Quark, Pagemaker, Publisher, Word, Word Perfect, and those stupid little "design" programs that come free on PC's. The rest is us creating stuff from scratch. The large companies we send artwork to, do not accept native InDesign files so I have to export to Tiff, EPS, or PDF.
A recent business card we sent out had so many problems on thier end. I sent an EPS originally WITH the fonts embedded. They got it and put it on hold because they said that the fonts were not working. I sent something else, they couldnt handle it. I finally said "Can I send a fricken PDF?" and they said yes so I sent that. Thats the most trouble I have ever had on a business card. Usually this company can use my files just fine.
I completely disagree that OS9 is better than OSX. At first, OSX was a pain because legacy devices didn't have drivers written for them. Over time though, all my legacy devices are working without workarounds.
OSX is more stable and offers more latitude for navigation, file handling, etc.
I think that as a whole, right now, OS 9 as an OS seems to work faster. Everything is a little more responsive which saves time. HOWEVER, all the cool stuff in OSX like the finder and multitasking and NO CRASHING definately makes up for and saves a helluva lot more time.
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