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The Right Stuff For Software
July 2, 2008

As I mentioned last blog, I visited Quark headquarters recently for the QuarkXpress 8 XPerience Design Tour and was reminded of the early days of desktop publishing which was a magical time. Wild new features were being introduced at every show including kerning, tracking and text run arounds from XPress.

Its important to remember the times. At this time the internet was not established as the communication medium it is today and people actually went to shows like Boston Seybold show to talk to each other about new technology and products. For example, it would not be unusual for Tim Gill to lead a group of people back to the Marriott Copley Hotel bar to talk about new and better things to come in the next version of XPress.

If your wondering why I am waxing pathetically about the magic of the old days –there is a reason. There is culture created by those in charge at software companies. When this culture is married to innovative technology it results in successful products and creates a buzz which results in the wide spread adoption of those products and the success of those companies.

At Apple it was the genius team of technical guy Steve Wozniak and marketing guy of Steve Jobs, at Adobe it was soft spoken brilliant programming team, of John Warnock and Charles Geschke and at Quark it was the vision and programming genius of Tim Gill. Years ago when Tim Gill left it created a huge void.

Next time: Does the new Quark have the right stuff?

Posted by Howie Fenton on July 2, 2008 | Comments (0)