Another Editor
08-12-2011, 06:47 PM
This is more related to publishing than writing, but the self-publishers out there might find this interesting.
The company that makes the QuarkXPress page layout software was bought out (http://www.quark.com/About_Quark/Press/PressDetail.aspx?ncid=1444) on August 9 by a company called Platinum Equity Group (http://www.platinumequity.com/news/530/platinum-equity-acquires-quark-). Many books are laid out in QuarkXPress (“Quark” for short) and even though it has lost a lot of market share in the last 10 years (http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100401/can-quark-turn-the-corner.html) to Adobe InDesign, many graphic designers swear by it.
Platinum Equity is a company that exists to buy other companies. They don’t produce any products or services; they just buy companies that do, and then either make money off of their profitable enterprises or sell them once they have reorganized them and made them more profitable. They made a lot of purchases in the last couple of years to profit off of companies that were at death’s door.
While it’s good that somebody is interested in turning Quark into something that can once again threaten Adobe (not that I have anything against Adobe, just that I think competition is a good thing), Platinum Equity might not be the best company to do it. Companies that produce creative products (Quark definitely qualifies as such) have a different organizational mindset from mergers and acquisitions firms or other more general areas of business. Take a look at what happened at Apple Computer (http://www.macobserver.com/article/2001/02/06.13.shtml) when they got a former CEO of Pepsi Cola to to take over their executive mantle in the 90s. It ushered in a period of such profound decline that their next CEO had to lay off a lot of people to keep the company afloat. John Scully (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/president/players/sculley.html) is not a bad executive at all; you can’t be if you’re going to challenge Coca Cola; but his methods just didn’t do it for Apple.
It will be interesting to see how this develops. Quark 9 (http://www.quark.com/Products/QuarkXPress/Whats_New.aspx) looks awesome, so it’s not like there’s anything wrong with the product.
The company that makes the QuarkXPress page layout software was bought out (http://www.quark.com/About_Quark/Press/PressDetail.aspx?ncid=1444) on August 9 by a company called Platinum Equity Group (http://www.platinumequity.com/news/530/platinum-equity-acquires-quark-). Many books are laid out in QuarkXPress (“Quark” for short) and even though it has lost a lot of market share in the last 10 years (http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100401/can-quark-turn-the-corner.html) to Adobe InDesign, many graphic designers swear by it.
Platinum Equity is a company that exists to buy other companies. They don’t produce any products or services; they just buy companies that do, and then either make money off of their profitable enterprises or sell them once they have reorganized them and made them more profitable. They made a lot of purchases in the last couple of years to profit off of companies that were at death’s door.
While it’s good that somebody is interested in turning Quark into something that can once again threaten Adobe (not that I have anything against Adobe, just that I think competition is a good thing), Platinum Equity might not be the best company to do it. Companies that produce creative products (Quark definitely qualifies as such) have a different organizational mindset from mergers and acquisitions firms or other more general areas of business. Take a look at what happened at Apple Computer (http://www.macobserver.com/article/2001/02/06.13.shtml) when they got a former CEO of Pepsi Cola to to take over their executive mantle in the 90s. It ushered in a period of such profound decline that their next CEO had to lay off a lot of people to keep the company afloat. John Scully (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/president/players/sculley.html) is not a bad executive at all; you can’t be if you’re going to challenge Coca Cola; but his methods just didn’t do it for Apple.
It will be interesting to see how this develops. Quark 9 (http://www.quark.com/Products/QuarkXPress/Whats_New.aspx) looks awesome, so it’s not like there’s anything wrong with the product.